Flow battery to optimise energy and balance nature, animals, people and economy

Problem

The Kattegatcenter is an energy-heavy building, because facilities must be continuously cooled, cleaned and calibrated to ensure the well-being of the animals - and the new world-class penguin facility is no exception. Here, the temperature must be kept at around 7 degrees at all times - both in the air and in the penguins' 200,000-litre pool, which results in an annual energy consumption of a whopping 384,000 kWh for the Penguin House alone.

"Imagine a huge refrigerator with both cold water, an ice machine and air conditioning in the form of an advanced ventilation system that cleans the air 8-12 times an hour."

Karsten Bjerrum Nielsen, Managing Director of the Kattegatcenteret

Therefore, right from the start of the project, and all other projects in general, they have seen themselves morally and financially obliged to consider sustainability - both in relation to the climate and the environment, socially and economically. This applies to everything from design and interior design, to the choice of components and systems for energy supply and energy-optimizing solutions.

“It's about finding the right balance between animals, people, nature and the economy; and that is what VisBlue's climate- and environmentally correct flow battery helps to give us"

(Karsten Bjerrum Nielsen, Managing Director, Kattegatcenteret)

Solution

With VisBlue's flow battery, it becomes possible to both take the self-produced, green excess energy from the Kattegat center's 1,800 m2 large solar cell plant during the day AND buy it intelligently from the electricity grid when the prices in the electricity grid are lowest, and store it in the battery until the sun has gone down.

Benefits

Hereby, the utilization rate of the solar cell plant is raised to a whopping 96% against the previous utilization rate of 87%, which corresponds to an annual saving of approximately 10,000 kWh; a saving which is both important for their energy account in kroner/øre and for their CO2 account.Without the battery, this energy would be sold to the grid at an unreasonably low price, only to later have to be bought back at a much higher price in order to supply the plants' energy consumption in the evening and night hours, when their solar cells are not producing.