Multi Functional Recorders Monitor the Biggest Battery Energy Storage in Europe

The Customer’s Challenge

To provide energy storage and support for the grid the Megapack System needs to respond rapidly to disturbances in the flow of electricity around the grid as well as Dynamic Containment (fast-acting post-fault service) to contain frequency within the statutory range of +/-0.5Hz in the event of a sudden demand or generation loss. To comply with the G99 UK standard and the above demands, a high accuracy power monitoring device, with the ability to achieve 0.01Hz accuracy was required. The monitoring device also needed to comply with the IEC 61850 communication standard.

About the Project

Tesla’s Pillswood Project, near Hull in the UK is a 196 MWh battery system, capable of backing up power to around 300,000 UK homes in two hours. The project provides critical balancing services to stabilize the GB electricity grid network and adds more renewables to the energy mix in Europe to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Our Solution

Elspec’s G5 multi-functional digital fault recorder was chosen for this goal. The G5 provides the ability to record the waveform at sampling rate of 1,024 sample/cycle without the need of any trigger setting or thresholds. Its frequency data transmitted is at rate of up to 10ms, achieving accuracy of 0.05mHz which is X20 from the requirement. The combination between the G5 and Elspec’s PQSCADA Sapphire power monitoring software, enables to view and analyze more than 5,000 power parameters at any given resolution from the acquired waveform signals. This multi-functional digital fault recorder exceeds C37.118 Synchro-phasor requirements for both M and P classes, IEC 61850 MMS, GOOSE and SV.

Results

The ongoing Tesla projects in the UK use Elspec’s G5 continuous waveform recording units, providing supreme monitoring accuracy.