The onshore wind operator Alterric has connected its first battery storage system to the grid at the Oslebshausen wind farm near Bremen. After a test phase, the unit is now feeding electricity into the grid, extending the company’s activities beyond pure generation.
The two-megawatt battery can absorb power from the wind farm and feed it back at a later time, smoothing output and aligning it more closely with grid demand. Alterric says the system can respond to grid signals within a very short time, supporting system stability.
The project is the start of what Alterric calls energy parks, in which existing wind farms are combined with storage and, over time, further technologies at a single site. The company is already active in balancing-power markets and provides reactive power for grid stabilisation. Six more batteries with combined capacity above 100 MWh are in development, two already under construction.
CEO Frank May said flexibility was the basis for a stable power system but warned that generation-side solutions cannot replace investment in smarter grids. For the Baltic region, where wind shares are rising fast, co-locating storage with wind is becoming a standard tool for managing variable output.
