Agriculture · Uelzen, Germany · 2023
A potato store that stores sunshine for the autumn
Site plan
Heidegut Kartoffeln
Uelzen, Germany
- Solar array, 760 kWp
- Battery, 600 kWh
- Trees and planting kept
- Completed
- 2023
- Drawn by
- Lumora engineering
- System size
- 760 kWp
- Yearly generation
- 699 MWh
- Saved a year
- €112,000
- Payback
- 7.8 years
- CO₂ avoided a year
- 273 t
01The challenge
Heidegut stores 18,000 tonnes of potatoes from September to June. The store's fans run hardest at night in autumn, when outside air is coolest, while a solar array makes most in summer. A roof array alone would have exported most of its power.
02What we built
We paired the array with a 600 kWh battery that moves the afternoon's power to the night ventilation, and sized the system to the store's real load rather than its roof. In summer, the surplus runs the machine hall and the grain dryer.
03The result
The store uses 60% of the 699 MWh it makes, double what a roof array alone would have managed, and the battery runs the night fans through most of September and October.
How the project ran
Assessment
November 2022
A storage season of meter data and the fan control schedule.
Design
December 2022 to February 2023
System sized to the store's load, with the battery set to the ventilation schedule.
Installation
April to June 2023
Built between the end of one storage season and the next harvest.
Monitoring
From July 2023
Ventilation control linked to the battery before the first harvest came in.
They talked us out of the biggest system and into the right one. The numbers have proved them right.
Site assessment
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