Grid consumption reduced by 75%!

Energy Management is not only a buzzword, it might have significant impacts for many companies. This case study proves it with the installation of a combined solution (energy management + backup) in a poultry farm.

The solution, designed, integrated and installed by the Belgian company Greenergy (website), is made up of lithium batteries, power converters and a complete energy management system. The system is connected to the PV installation and can be installed in new or existing buildings.

This poultry farm has a particular electricity consumption profile. The photovoltaic installation generates more energy than what is consumed by the loads during the day and the need for energy at night is considerably high. For that reason, there is a lot of energy exchange with the utility grid: reinjection during the day and withdrawal at night.

The installation includes 60 kW/kVA of power converters. The three CE+T modules installed have a bidirectional DC port (for battery charge/discharge), an AC output supplying the loads and an AC input connected to both the grid and the PV installation.

215 kWh of lithium batteries are integrated in the solution. The storage solution, delivered by CE+T Energrid, is operated by the Greenergy home-made BMS developed to extend battery life and implement fail safes functions.

After few months of operation, the results are significant. From an annual grid consumption of 72 MWh, the farm now withdraws only 18 MWh from the grid representing a 75% reduction!

The graph below shows the electricity interactions with the utility grid during the month of April 2020. As you can see, the graph is almost always below the zero, representing the energy reinjected to the grid by the farm (when the batteries are full). Almost no energy is withdrawn thanks to the storage system, fueled by the PV, installed:

On top of that, the farm benefits from a power backup solution using the converters and batteries already installed.