Until the middle of this year, the partners of the OptiStore project will be involved in developing an innovative self-sufficient electricity system. The central power converter unit will be able to adapt ‒ by means of modular expansion options ‒ to the different performance and storage capacity requirements of industry and commerce. It will also have additional features such as an enhanced battery life. In addition to developing features that have been specifically adapted to the target group, the focus will also be on achieving cost benefits, in terms of investment and operating costs, for the entire system.

In order to achieve these goals, the project partners Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, AKASOL GmbH, Refu Elektronik GmbH and Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) are focusing primarily on improving the individual components and system technology at a technical and methodological level. The TU Dresden is also working on an innovative operation management procedure. To do this, a practical forecasting method, a load profile generator and a solution for the automatic gathering of weather forecast data are being developed. In order to reduce costs, smaller passive components will be used and the switching frequency adjusted accordingly ‒ without suffering any loss in performance. What will later distinguish this system from devices that are currently commercially available will be a higher overall efficiency, enhanced by the use of the latest power semiconductors as well as an innovative design and connection technology.

The overall system, which will be developed on the basis of extensive measurements on reference systems and simulations, will subsequently be tested in actual practice in an accompanying test phase.