As the leader of the Belgian pilot project, the SmartCORE partner Ecopower, a cooperative producing and supplying green energy in Flanders, is working towards a smarter, more flexible and sustainable energy system. Building upon years of experience innovating in flexibility, the latest step in this journey is the battery project at Sanapolis, the renovated healthcare site located on the grounds of the former Elisabeth hospital in Sijsele (Damme).
With the support of the SmartCORE partners,
Ecopower is investigating how batteries can actively contribute to tomorrow’s
energy system and what value they can provide for cooperative members, local
users and the wider electricity grid.
Sanapolis: a healthcare site moving towards energy flexibility
The Sanapolis site is gradually being transformed into a care and wellbeing campus. It already hosts a large solar PV installation (366 kWp), developed and owned by the energy cooperative Volterra, which supplies the site with renewable electricity.
Following
the installation of a battery of 300 kW (640 kWh) on the Sanapolis site,
Ecopower has joined this project to explore, within the framework of SmartCORE,
how batteries can be deployed in a cooperative context and what can be learned
from such use cases.
Why Ecopower invests in battery innovation
As a cooperative energy supplier, Ecopower actively seeks innovative applications that offer long-term value to its members. Batteries play a pivotal role in this ambition: they can create value across different energy markets, enable new services and support the grid in becoming more flexible.
On the Sanapolis site, the battery will be tested across several operational and business cases:
- Maximising self-consumption
The battery can store solar energy during the day and release it when the site needs it most, boosting the share of locally produced renewable energy that is consumed on-site.
- Controlled injection into the grid
The battery helps manage and feed solar energy into the grid smarter at favourable times, for example, when demand on the Sanapolis site is higher or when there is less production from the solar installation. By buffering energy over time and avoiding injection at the same moment as all other solar installations in the neighbourhood, the value of the injected electricity into the grid is increased.
- Reducing peak demand
The battery can help lower the site’s connection capacity and peak power demand, which is increasingly important in a system where peaks create both financial and grid-related challenges.
- Participation in the FCR market
The battery can also provide flexibility services on the Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) market to support the transmission system operator in stabilising grid frequency.
Thanks to SmartCORE, Ecopower can test, evaluate and compare these different applications to build expertise for future cooperative battery projects.
Partners
The pilot project relies on the joint participation of the following partners:
- Sanapolis vzw – grants Ecopower a right of superficies for the battery.
- Volterra cv – owner of the PV installation on the site.
- Ecopower cv – investor and SmartCORE pilot leader in Belgium.
- SmartCORE (Interreg NWE) – provides support for investment and testing activities.
Together towards a smarter energy future
With the Sanapolis project, Ecopower and its partners are taking an important step towards an energy system where production, consumption and storage are smartly balanced. The insights gained with this pilot will serve as inspiration and a model for future cooperative battery initiatives across North-West Europe.