Hi All, looking for some advice. First off I'm a mechanical engineer with limited experience of electrical control systems.

Basically I have been given a thesis on developing a control system for battery storage with wind. I will have a computer to send commands to the battery for active power (when to discharge and charge) and reactive power (basically using the battery as a power factor correction capacitor bank). The battery is a ZBB ZESS 500, a 500kWh ‘plug and play’ system consisting of ten zinc bromide 50kWh modules and the turbine is a Vestas 850kW

If any of you have any experience in this area could you make suggestions how I would approach this thesis or if there are any good sources of info on the net that you may have come across. I'm making up a proposal document at the minute. I've experience in Matlab and I'm brushing up on Homer to model the system.

Thanks for any info and advice.

It wouldn't happen to be this one, would it?

Windtech International - ZBB Energy Corporation Ships ZESS 500 Energy Storage System

That is a HUGE system as far as energy storage.

Google is great isn't it , yea thats the system alright.

ZBB are supplying it with a BMS. My thesis will involve looking into developing a control algorithm and then hopefully implementing it.

What does BMS stand for? Will you be working with the project hands on when it arrives?

BMS...battery management system.

Yes hopefully i will get to work with the battery hands on when it arrives. A team based at the college have already developed a control system, my thesis will involve designing a similar system in parallel to gain experience in the area.

Whether it will be implemented or not depends on how far I get by December!
Basically the battery is there to experiment with....within reason of course!

What .... precisely .... are you trying to control?

Thats... precisely...what I'm trying to find out user_88. Apologies for showing my ignorance but I have little experience in this area and I'm trying to filter down exactly what the aims of the thesis will be.
Obviously we will try and store energy when we have excess wind and vice versa but also in Ireland the national grid is similar to the Danish electricity market so we could try and optimise the system based on what price electricity is getting on the market at any period during the day/night.

Excuse the newbie question from before. I assumed BMS stood for battery management system.

In regards to price of electricity, if the battery is fully charged and/or there is excess wind energy, would there be a possibility of providing that excess in energy to the grid?

Yes, any excess energy will be supplied to the grid, and will earn what the spot price in that period.