Panasonic to begin mass-production of long-life lithium-ion battery system for solar-powered homes in Europe

www.power-eng.com
5 Jun 2012

Osaka, June 4, 2012 (JCN Newswire)-Panasonic Corporation announced today that it will start in June mass-production of a compact, secure and long-life lithium-ion battery system the company has developed for European homes. This marks the first time for the company to produce in volume such a system designed for Europe.

In Germany and other European countries, governments are cutting purchase prices for solar power in order to rein in the expansion of solar power generation, which led solution that allows consumers to optimize the self-consumption of solar power generated on their rooftops. Towards a coming era where people generate energy for their own use, Panasonic is strengthening its storage battery business and the development of large-scale storage battery systems whose demand is expected to expand rapidly.

Last year, Panasonic supplied its lithium-ion battery storage system for the S10 household energy storage system developed by E3/DC, an engineering firm in Germany. Through field tests in Germany, Panasonic is ready to mass-produce the lithium-ion battery system.

The lithium-ion battery system consists of the Panasonic battery module with nominal capacity of 1.35kW and a battery management system designed to control charge and discharge of the battery in accordance with customer needs. The battery system stores excess energy generated from the photovoltaic (PV) power system during peak hours of PV generation and discharges the energy as needed, providing an ideal solution as a household battery storage system that helps self-consumption of solar-generated power. It will also enable households to reduce the dependence on grid power and facilitate the further spread of green energy.

"In Germany, there is a concern that the integration of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, into the power grid could cause instability in power distribution because of their unpredictable nature", said Mr. Fumitoshi Terashima, Director, Smart Energy Systems Business Unit, Energy Company of Panasonic. "With our state-of-art lithium-ion battery technology and high-quality battery management systems, we will promote self-consumption of solar power generated by households as well as reduction of load during peak hours. In so doing, Panasonic aims for a leading position in providing a solution to protect the power grid system".

Panasonic Group continues to accelerate the development and commercialization of high-performance battery storage systems and contributes to the growth of the global market for such systems.

Special features:

1. The lithium-ion battery system has design life time of 5000 cycles* and realizes long-term operation. (*Estimated based on the conditions of about 80% DOD and normal temperature.)
2. The high-performance battery management provides battery status information to the controller of home energy storage system, which allows users to remotely monitor the status of the system and battery.
3. A high-capacity and high-voltage lithium-ion battery system employs a lithium-ion cell that is specifically developed for an energy storage application.