2024-07-25 14:21:06
In order for such an alternative to be more financially beneficial for the population, energy expert Martynas Nagevičius suggests changing the current regulatory environment in the country.
According to ESO, on average more than 3,000 people are connected to the network every month. producing consumers, and currently there are almost 110 thousand throughout Lithuania. producing consumers.
The majority of them, 73 thousand, have installed solar power plants on their own house plots, while the rest are remote generating consumers.
The average power of a private generating user’s power plant is 9.9 kW (kilowatts).
According to the Law on Electricity, ESO distributes the free bandwidth of electricity networks every 6 months.
They are divided according to priority groups – natural persons, legal persons and non-profit legal persons, for example, state enterprises, schools, kindergartens, etc.
“Restrictions (to increase power plant capacity – ELTA) are applied when the network is no longer capable of connecting additional generation – they depend on the remaining bandwidth of the electricity network, after assessing the consumption habits of electricity consumers connected in a specific location and the amount and power of already connected power plants,” the representative of ESO told Eltai Rasa Juodkiene.
“If, according to the client’s basket, there is free bandwidth in that part of the network for the connection of additional generation, then the capabilities of the ESO network in the specific location desired by the client are evaluated,” she emphasized.
According to the data of the network operator, a large part of generating consumers install more powerful power plants than they need and thus accumulate a large surplus of unused electricity.
Therefore, according to R. Juodkienė, ESO recommends to its customers to assess the real needs of the household before installing the power plant, and not the maximum possibilities of the roof of the house.
“In this case, customers will save money for investing in an oversized power plant and thus free power will be left for other customers who would like to install a power plant,” says ESO.
“For customers who want to become a generating user or who want to increase power, but there is no free bandwidth, we always recommend evaluating the possibility of installing an electricity storage device that would store the amount of energy that exceeds the permitted generation power and allow the excess to be consumed or fed into the network later.” – recommended by the network operator.
ESO also offers as an alternative the installation of a micro-generator or a so-called “balcony” power plant up to 0.8 kW, since such power plants are connected regardless of free network bandwidth.
Residents are also offered the option of installing a remote power plant.
“This can be done in two ways: by purchasing a part of the power plant from a large park of distant generating users, or by installing a power plant on another plot of land of the same customer, where there is still free capacity. Of course, in the second case, you need to have your own other piece of land or a garden house, a homestead or another real estate object,” reminds R. Juodkienė.
At the beginning of June, the Government decided to distribute the unused capacity of electricity networks to non-profit legal entities and consumers or companies producing electricity from renewable resources.
According to the Ministry of Energy, from 2023 at the end of January, only 0.451 GW of the available 1.6 GW (gigawatts) of capacity for solar power plants was used, and only 0.013 GW of the 0.57 GW for wind power plants. Therefore, the remaining free capacity of the electricity system for solar power plants is 1.149 GW, and for wind power plants – 0.558 GW of permitted generation power.
As a result, free electricity bandwidths are proposed to be distributed to priority groups – energy societies, non-profit legal entities that will use the energy produced from green sources for their own needs, energy storage devices and hybrid power plants, as well as natural persons who are generating consumers or aspire to become such .
The solution to the problem is to limit the power of power plants through “inverters”
In the absence of free bandwidth in the network, part of the population builds power plants with a higher power than allowed, and limits the power through the so-called “inverter”. In such cases, residents can store electricity generated but not delivered to the ESO network in a special battery.
Liudas Karalius, product manager of Solitek, a company that produces such batteries, says that accumulators are useful for residents in order not to waste the electricity produced on a sunny day or to use the battery as a backup source of energy at home in the event of a sudden power outage – for example, if overhead power lines are cut due to a storm or other accidents .
“If you don’t get the conditions to increase the power plant, there are opportunities to expand it without ESO’s knowledge, just then you don’t have the right to give that additional power to the network. The battery is used so that excess solar energy can be stored in it and (…) used at some point when the energy is no longer being generated. Or you can consume it yourself, for example, in the evening, or give it to the network at night, when there is no generation”, explained L. Karalius to Elta.
According to the expert, batteries work in cycles, and their ability to supply the house with stored electricity depends on how much excess electricity is generated and how quickly the battery “fills up”.
Therefore, as emphasized by L. Karalius, residents should choose power plants according to what is economically more favorable for them.
“If a person has built a 7 kilowatt power plant and calculates that he needs another 3 kilowatts (power – ELTA), then 3 kilowatts on a very sunny day can produce some 18 kilowatt hours (electricity – ELTA) throughout the day. So, in order to fit all the excess energy into the battery, as it should be, a 20 kilowatt-hour battery would be needed. Of course, here we have to consider whether we really want to store all that energy even on the sunniest day,” said L. Karalius.
“If they have a relatively small amount of kilowatts (low power battery – ELTA), they generate enough during the day that the battery fills up quickly enough. Most of the time, the battery works in a diurnal cycle – the length of the cycle is 24 hours. It stores the excess energy generated during the day, some of it is used directly for household consumption in the evening, then the rest that is not consumed is fed back into the grid for storage. Then the battery discharges to a certain specified level and the next day everything starts from the beginning”, the expert explained the operation of the battery.
M. Nagevičius: the current regulation needs to be changed
It’s true, Martynas Nagevičius, president of the Lithuanian Renewable Energy Confederation (LAIEK), emphasizes that due to the current net-metering model, the batteries purchased by residents pay for themselves rather hard.
According to the head of LAIEK, for now, such accumulators only make it possible to connect a solar power plant where the network bandwidth does not allow it.
“At the moment, the battery itself does not bring any benefit to the current energy accounting system, perhaps it slightly reduces the costs to ESO for using the electricity network. But that cost reduction is so small that there is no way to talk about the payback of the battery,” said the energy expert.
“There needs to be a very big change in the regulatory environment to anticipate all the benefits that storage batteries bring to the grid and the energy system, so that they translate into revenue for that owner, the investor in the storage battery,” he noted.
At the end of last year, the Seimas adopted amendments to the law, which changed the accounting model of electricity stored for non-domestic generating consumers from accounting in kilowatt hours (net-metering) to net-billing. However, this procedure was not legalized for residents who produce electricity at home. However, according to M. Nagevičius, it is unlikely that such decisions would be made in the pre-election autumn session. “I think that the elections should be over, then it will be back to the question of how to change the so-called net-metering scheme to net billing (…). Then there will be an opportunity, even a necessity, I would say, for the owners of solar power plants to invest in storage batteries as a means that would really bring a lot of benefits”, emphasized the president of LAIEK. “Then their income will depend on what time you give electricity to the grid, and their costs will depend on what moment you take electricity from the grid. When you have a storage battery, you can switch (…) and supply electricity to the grid when it is the most expensive, and take electricity from the grid when it is the cheapest. Then comes the affordability of the battery,” he added.
2024-07-25 14:21:06