When clean energy storage “grows” from good soil

At the Plößberg site in north-east Bavaria, Erdenwerk Gregor Ziegler GmbH produces a wide range of high-quality soils and substrates, fertilizers and even over 100,000 tons of wood pellets and around 25,000 tons of wood briquettes every year. As the European market leader for potting and planting soil, Ziegler supports hobby gardeners and professionals alike with products made from natural resources. Most of the raw materials come from the region, short transport routes and the company’s own logistics fleet ensure quality, sustainability and flexibility.

Sustainability is not a trend at Ziegler, but a tradition. As early as 2010, the company focused on consistently reducing emissions and commissioned two biomass power plants. These supply the site with electricity and heat, which in turn are used for drying and processing sawmill by-products. The company is now managed by the second generation: Under the leadership of Managing Director Matthias Ziegler , the focusat Erdenwerk Gregor Ziegler GmbH is on sustainable management with roots and foresight as well as the idea of efficient use of raw materials.

“The main reason for our investment in battery storage is atypical grid usage. As we have to partially shut down our machines and adjust the energy management system accordingly during the three to six months of the year when we reach peak load windows, we can now operate our systems much more energy-efficiently,” says Managing Director Matthias Ziegler.

Use cases: reducing peak loads, flexibly buffering electricity, replacing fossil systems

With the next step towards climate protection, Ziegler is focusing on electricity self-sufficiency and self-consumption optimization at its production site and is now also saying goodbye to “dirty” diesel generators as a back-up solution. Instead, four zero-life battery storage systemsfrom STABL Energy will be used, which willenable the storage ofself-produced and inexpensive electricity from the grid at variable times in the future. The key data is impressive: each storage container has an output of 405 kW and a usable capacity of 1,233 kWh, which corresponds to a total output of 1,620 kW and a usable capacity of 4,932 kWh.

A total of 1,296 zero-life battery modules, which were not originally used in vehicles, have found a new use thanks to STABL’s modular multilevel inverter technology.The as-new batteries from surplus stock not only make the storage systems very powerful and durable, but also help to conserve valuable resources for a genuine circular economy and maximum resource efficiency.

Four battery storage systems for a fossil-free future

“The storage systems enable atypical grid usage with reduced grid charges for Gregor Ziegler GmbH. At the same time, they ensure a cleanandresource-efficientenergy supply without fossil emergency solutions,” adds Markus Weiss, Project Manager at STABL. The basis for this is that Erdenwerk Gregor Ziegler ‘s own peak load lies outside the peak load time windows specified by the grid operator, i.e. it is simply shifted with the help of the new buffer storage units. Atypicality is therefore also considered a special form of peak shaving or peak load capping.

This means thatGregor Ziegler GmbH’s electricity consumption now takes place at times when the grid is under less load. Thanks totargetedatypical grid usage, it significantly reducesits regular grid fees and thus acts in a grid-friendly manner.
This has created a real “seedbed” for fossil-free power supply at Erdenwerk Gregor Ziegler GmbH in the Upper Palatinate.