The facility is located on the premises of Jofemar’s industrial facilities in Peralta (Navarra). It has been set up as part of EU funding programme LIFE+ 2013 to demonstrate, through the implementation of a full-scale industrial smart-grid, that microgrids can become one of the most suitable solutions for energy generation and management in factories that want to minimize their environmental impact.
The installation has been designed to meet the specific energy needs of the Jofemar plant and features RES generation (a 120 kW wind turbine and a 40 kW roof-top PV installation) as well as different energy storage technologies (500 kWh Zn-Br flow batteries and 60 kWh Li-ion batteries). Apart from the plant’s consumption the microgrid will integrate six V2G
Peak consumption of the factory is 230 kW. The project estimates to reduce energy consumption due to the energy management of 100 kW of dispatchable loads, allowing a reduction of 73 million tons of CO2 emissions per year. By storing the energy and managing the energy flows in order to consume all renewable energy generated, 35.4 million tons of CO2 emissions can be saved. Additionally, a further reduction of 38 million tons of CO2 emissions is envisaged, with the operation of 6 electric vehicles as part of the microgrid. RES electricity production is consumed within the industrial multi-RES ECO. In some of the cases directly (when loading and production conditions so permit), or by storing the surplus energy in storage systems.
One of the objectives of the industrial micro-grid multi-RES ECO is to test and validate different strategies for energy management to maximize the use of renewable energies by managing storage and dispatchable loads. The business model is based on self-consumption in a microgrid which is a specially interesting case for installations in many countries where support schemes are being reduced or eliminated. By consuming all or most of the generated electricity, grid impact is limited.