French innovation: RTE inaugurates virtual and robotic green electricity transport

Avoid the oversizing of the electricity network in a context of solar and wind rise?It is today possible in an intelligent way thanks to automated batteries.In Côte-d´Or, RTE inaugurated in early July its first experimental site for virtual large-scale electricity transport, called Ringo.A world premiere.

It can happen in certain sectors of the electrical network that the quantity of solar or wind electricity injected exceeds the local capacities of it at times.Green electrical overproduction is then lost.

A solution would be to increase the power of the power lines, but it is expensive.The rapid drop in the cost of lithium-ion batteries allows RTE today to envisage a new approach: that of the electrochemical and automatic storage of surpluses, and their simultaneous restitution in another place, just as robotic.

This storage system makes it possible to postpone the construction of certain power lines, in accordance with the decency development of the RTE network.However, storage is assimilated with regard to European legislation to a "production tool", RTE cannot therefore store current and must then use a device.

The parallel operation of three sites allows RTE to reach a zero balance.When one stores energy in its batteries, one or more others retrocede it at the same time on the electricity network.Although the electric current is not transported "physically" from one site to another, the result is the same.So it is a sort of "virtual" transport.A world premiere.By simultaneously storing and destocking equivalent quantities, market rules are respected.

Automatic management

As RTE points out in its press release, “for the first time in the world, 3 storage battery sites will be controlled remotely thanks to automata collecting real -time data.Thanks to sensors installed on the network that measure the electron flows at all times, algorithms optimize storage in real time ".

The batteries are provided by the Nidec group for the site in Côte-d'Or located near the parks of wind production in service or in development.RTE specifies that "the experiment will last three years and will take place concomitantly with two other partners, in the Hautes-Alpes on the Ventavon site, near the solar production sites, and in the Limousin on the Bellac site where parkswind and solar are already present ”.

The three sites total a capacity of around 100 MWh of storage.Ringo offers new flexibilities to the electrical system with a view to optimizing costs.This modern approach will allow RTE to "strengthen and optimize network management while guaranteeing access to a safe, clean and inexpensive power supply to all French and every moment.The RTE network is a central infrastructure in the implementation of the energy transition and it must keep its promise of efficiency ".

Ringo illustrates the innovation capacities of large French industrial groups to transform the electrical system at the service of the energy transition."More than 50% of the added value of the construction and installation of batteries is in France," recalls the specialized site Tecsol.