News

The water battery is an innovative combination of a wind power plant and a small and flexible pumped storage plant for the storage and controlled feed of volatile renewable energy into the grid. The first pilot project is currently underway in Gaildorf (Germany). For this purpose, ILF Consulting Engineers was commissioned by Max Bögl Wind AG to provide different consulting and design services for the pumped storage plant.

Innovative solutions and various other unique features characterize the initial implementation in Gaildorf and make this project a lighthouse project. The storage plant has a head of 200 m. With regard to machinery, the innovate character is emphasized by the 3×6 MW variable speed reversible pump turbines with asynchronous generator and full converter, all of which is meant to achieve maximum flexibility for demand based storage and feed-in of the generated energy.

The forward-looking project is supported with EUR 7.15 million funded through the environmental innovation program of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Construction and Nuclear Safety.*

*Source: https://www.naturspeicher.de/de/pilotprojekt/pilotprojekt.php