sonnen to build Europe’s largest virtual home battery storage solution

sonnen's virtual storage consists of tens of thousands of sonnenBatteries throughout Germany which can be intelligently controlled and used like a large-scale storage facility. The total capacity of this virtual power plant, currently 250 MWh, is growing continuously and is expected to reach 1 GWh in the next few years. This will provide the power grid with a digital and decentralised buffer storage that can balance the supply and demand of renewable energies. 

Wildpoldsried, August 17, 2023 – With the construction of the largest virtual home battery storage solution in Europe, sonnen is setting new standards in the digital networking of households and renewable energies. 25,000 sonnenBatteries across Germany are already up and running, which corresponds to a capacity of 250 MWh. The goal is to increase this capacity to 1 GWh in the next few years. 

Among other things, sonnen’s virtual power plant provides capacity for the German transmission grid to compensate for frequency fluctuations in the power grid (frequency containment reserve) or to participate in electricity trading on the stock exchange. In addition, the storage fleet can shift the feed-in time of solar power to a more convenient time for the grid; for example, by ensuring that the midday peak of solar power (PV) systems is stored instead of burdening the power grid. Beside the self-consumption of solar energy, customers benefit from such services via the energy contract sonnenFlat and receive a share of the profits from the virtual power plant. 

Oliver Koch, CEO of sonnen, said: “Almost any country that switches to clean energy will, sooner or later, reach the limits of its power grids by merely adding capacity. That's why storage and digitalization are key technologies, and that's why we're expanding our technology to more and more European markets, the US, and Australia. With our virtual power plant, we have an existing tool to integrate PV systems, electric vehicles, or heat pumps into our grids. Our power plant is already in people’s homes and does not require any additional space.” 

The advantage of a decentralised storage system is that it can be activated at virtually any location where there is currently a bottleneck in the power grid and is therefore not tied to a specific location. By participating in the energy markets, households also gain access to a market that was previously reserved for industrial suppliers. Revenue in the energy system is thus distributed more widely. 

In addition to Germany, sonnen also operates virtual power plants in the U.S., Australia, and Italy. This means that the Allgäu-based company exports a key technology for the energy transition worldwide.