Romania could use the surplus energy produced by photovoltaic plants on the roof of buildings to charge electric cars, just as it happens in some Scandinavian countries, said Ingar Sørensen, Sales Manager at the Norwegian company Pixii for the region Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, during the event “Energy efficiency for energy transition” organized in Constanța by Energynomics together with the Romanian Fund for Efficiency Energy – FREE and the Directorate for Energy Efficiency within the Ministry of Energy.

“We often use the term battery, but this is just the place where we store energy. In addition to the battery, an inverter is also needed to supply power to the network. If you have solar systems, you may sometimes produce too much energy at a certain time and if you sell it to the grid, you may get too low a price. In some countries this is a huge problem”, said Ingar Sørensen.

Also, installing batteries to store electricity in isolated areas is a much cheaper solution compared to expanding the infrastructure of electricity distribution, he said.

Pixii offers energy storage solutions ranging from 3kW to 1MW for a wide range of market segments and applications. Using an advanced system, the user can choose when to use the energy produced. The battery can also be used as a power source when the grid is down or overloaded.

According to Ingar Sørensen, batteries are not cheap and not everyone is willing to buy them, but sometimes they may not have a choice – for example when they don’t have a network connection. Another advantage of the battery and inverter system is that the energy it stores can be delivered to the balancing market, and the gains can reach significant levels in a year.

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION OF INGAR SORENSEN

At the same time, as the number of electric cars increases, batteries can be used at electric charging points, thus removing some of the pressure on the distribution network.

The conference in Constanța was the third of a series of 5 scheduled by the Energynomics communication platform, the Romanian Fund for Energy Efficiency – FREE and the Directorate for Energy Efficiency within the Ministry of Energy. The project is financed by Norwegian Grants 2014-2021. The next conferences are scheduled in Iași, on October 19 and 20, and in Bucharest, on November 16 and 17.