Project goals

• Congestion management    
• Robust, stable and sustainable energy supply     
• Storage of renewables energy surplus. 

The high-voltage substation of Zeewolde Wind Farm is located at the Vogelweg in Zeewolde. Via this substation, sustainably generated electricity from the wind farm is supplied to the national high-voltage grid. To contribute to a sustainable energy supply, congestion management and flexibility in the energy market, Zeewolde Wind Farm is building a large battery and hydrogen installation right next to this high-voltage substation. This will allow surplus sustainable electricity (on days with a lot of wind and sun) to be stored in batteries (storage in electrons) and/or converted to hydrogen (storage in molecules) by means of electrolysis. The stored electricity can be supplied to the grid at a later time, when there is more demand. The hydrogen produced can be transported and then used, for example as a fuel to replace (natural) gas in industrial processes that require a lot of heat. Hydrogen can also be used as a fuel for heavy transport (trucks, buses and shipping). 

Pondera has many years of experience in modelling wind and solar farms to support developers in supporting their business case. We have expanded our services in recent years to include Battery Revenue Assessment (BRA). A model was developed to calculate battery revenues based on parts of the electricity market open to batteries and determine the impact that local assets, such as solar and wind, have on them if they share the same connection. This model was deployed for the project in Zeewolde to help the customer choose the right size of battery in terms of capacity and power and build a business case. 

The realisation of the battery and hydrogen system requires several permits. Pondera supports the initiators in obtaining those permits, by drawing up applications and background reports required for that purpose. Part of this includes conducting studies on various environmental themes. 

As various components of battery and hydrogen plants produce noise, acoustic studies have been carried out, partly in connection with the noise generated by the transformers present at the high-voltage substation. A noise model was built based on noise data from the various installations and expected operations. This required coordination between us, the initiator and possible suppliers. Calculations with the model showed that the expected noise from the site on Vogelweg is acceptable. This cleared an important milestone on the road to licensing the battery.

''Jan-Willem, we couldn't have done this without you and the Pondera colleagues. Nice quick permit!''  

Client: Windpark Zeewolde