On 30 and 31 May 2022, the fourth General Assembly of iSTORMY took place at the University of Mondragon in Spain. This general assembly as well as the project itself has been highlighted by the university on their website.
The article is in Spanish and the full version can be found here. The article translates as follows:
One of the challenges facing the energy transition is the massive integration of renewable generation sources into electricity grids. Ensuring the energy balance is a challenge, as the energy generated by these sources is highly variable, so research about different energy storage solutions is essential to ensure an adequate electricity supply.
iSTORMY is a European research and innovation project, which started in December 2020 and addresses the new challenges of electricity systems with an increasing penetration of renewable energy sources by developing a hybrid and modular energy storage system that is able to interact with the electricity grid to provide multiple services.
The Faculty of Engineering of Mondragon Unibertsitatea is one of the entities participating in the project, in which 12 entities from six different countries are involved. The project will be developed over four years and Mondragon Unibertsitatea has organised the first face-to-face meeting on the 30th and 31st of May. The researchers from Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s Electrical Energy Group (leaders of one of the project’s work packages) are the organisers of this fourth Assembly to be held in Arrasate, the aim of which is to share the progress made over the last six months and to define future objectives.
During the first months, the project has focused on the modelling and characterisation of various energy storage technologies based on electrochemical batteries, and a hybrid solution has been designed that will be connected to the grid by means of an easily scalable and configurable modular converter topology. In addition, the Electric Power Group has proposed a new energy management strategy to offer a wide range of services to the grid.
The partners and Mondragon Unibertsitatea
The Assembly will be attended by the project partners: in addition to Mondragon Unibertsitatea, Cegasa Energía, the company Zigor, and also partners – organisations and universities – from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Austria. The role of Mondragon Unibertsitatea’s Higher Polytechnic School in the research project is backed by the experience of its Electrical Energy group, with extensive experience in the modelling, analysis and control of electrical systems in both alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC), the sizing and integration of energy storage systems in stationary applications and the control and design of power electronic converters.
Until recently much of the R&D around storage systems has focused on finding new battery chemistries or providing optimised battery solutions for a particular application. iSTORMY focuses on developing a modular and interoperable solution by combining innovations in power electronics, energy management system and batteries, including the possibility to use second life batteries (batteries previously used for other applications).
These features will allow the solution proposed in the iSTORMY project to have a longer lifetime, lower cost and be more flexible compared to existing solutions. In addition, the developed solution will be demonstrated through its experimental application in a real demonstration platform together with photovoltaic generation systems, electric vehicle charging stations and other energy assets.