Electricity is the future
E3/DC and the future of power supply
Dr. Andreas Piepenbrink, co-founder and Managing Director of E3/DC.
Electricity is the future
For increasing numbers of consumers, the energy revolution has come to the home. Thanks to energy storage systems from E3/DC, part of Hager Group, self-generated solar power can be used around the clock. And this is only the dawn of the great age of off-the-grid living.
68 % Jürgen Fischer is clearly delighted as he glances at the display of his home power plant. The yield report for 2018 has shown that the rooftop photovoltaic system has generated an impressive two-thirds of his home’s electricity. “We’re getting ever closer to our ultimate goal of living off-the-grid,” says Jürgen, an IT administrator, whose family of three lives in the idyllic village of Elbschetal, half-way between Dortmund and Wuppertal, in Germany.
Our home power stations are all-in-one systems. They are completely digitised, linked and expandable and able to supply emergency power.
Their journey began when Jürgen decided to replace his old oil burner with a modern pellet-fuelled heating system together with solar panels on the roof. “We already had scaffolding on site, so we decided to install a 9.75 kWp photovoltaic system at the same time.” In 2017, this was followed by the installation of a home power station from E3/DC; an energy storage and management system through which Jürgen is now able to generate a remarkable 68 % of his annual energy needs, approximately 7,000 kWh on site. His energy consumption is high as he uses solar power (as far as possible) to charge his electric Renault Zoe car in the garage. This also means that its ‘fuel’ is ‘home-made’, climate-neutral and available to the Fischer family at no extra cost.
According to Dr. Andreas Piepenbrink, the model adopted by the Fischer family serves as a blueprint for the future, with increasing numbers of households no longer simply generating green electricity, but also predominantly using it themselves. Dr. Piepenbrink is the Director and co-founder of German energy storage systems manufacturer E3/DC, acquired by Hager Group in 2017. Thanks to its S10 home power stations and the new Quattroporte series, E3/DC is helping commercial customers and private households, like the Fischer family, achieve a high degree of energy independence. As energy from the sun is not always supplied exactly when required, reliable storage systems to capture this green energy are essential.
This is precisely where the patented S10 home power station from E3/DC comes in, providing a solar inverter, storage battery and energy management system all in one. As Dr. Piepenbrink explains, “…our home power stations are all-in-one systems, comparable to the iPhone; they are completely digitised, linked and expandable. They are also able to supply emergency power, so in the event of a power failure, the home power station will automatically take over the energy supply.”
Since 2012, the young company and its installation partners have already installed around 15,000 home power stations in their customer’s cellars and technical rooms. Having already become the market leader in Switzerland, E3/DC is also well on the way to taking the top spot in Germany, which is currently one of the world’s top electricity storage market. Becoming part of Hager Group has certainly contributed to this, as Jean Lasserre, Vice President Corporate Strategy at Hager Group, explains, “…at Hager Group, we have extensive experience in the development of holistic building technology, with which new technologies can be seamlessly integrated.” For its part, Hager Group benefits from the power electronics and energy management expertise of the E3/DC developers. E3/DC can benefit from Hager Group’s extensive network of installation technicians.
This is greatly appreciated by customers such as Jürgen Fischer as E3/DC’s storage systems are an example of quality German engineering. Besides sourcing the automotive-standard lithium batteries from internationally renowned suppliers, E3/DC develops and manufactures the energy management system and the inverter, the heart of the home power station, independently at its German locations. As Dr. Piepenbrink explains, quality can ultimately only be guaranteed if you control it yourself. “We are proud to be able to give our customers a 10-year warranty and peace of mind. A few years down the line our in-house customer service will still be on hand to provide swift, reliable assistance when it is needed most.” Local production in Europe and service pledges also to represent a significant advantage over potential competitors. As a consequence swift on-site support can be guaranteed.
This is likely to become even more important in the future, and experts in energy storage already predict that demand will rise considerably over the next few years. This is partly as a result of the EU’s new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which prescribes more efficient standards for new buildings and favours heat pump-based heating technology. And if there is a rise in the number of homes with electric cars, the heat pump combined with the electric car will represent two major new consumers, making the private generation of electricity even more attractive.
For many, the combination of photovoltaic and energy storage systems today already offers the most cost-effective means of private energy generation. Over the life of the system, with approximately one third direct consumption and one third stored energy, Dr. Piepenbrink calculates electricity costs at around 10 cents per kilowatt-hour and that’s before taking into account any subsidies. “In other words, the investment in a home power station will take around ten years to pay off, but after that, you can essentially drive for free and recoup your investment costs twice or three times over.”
In the space of a few years E3/DC power plants have been improved in capacity and performance.
What’s more, the cost of photovoltaic systems and lithium-ion batteries is continuing to drop. Between 2016 and 2018 alone, storage capacity costs fell by approximately 30 % per kWh. The costs of solar power systems are also falling. Dr. Piepenbrink is therefore convinced that, “in only a few years’ time, energy from conventional sources will no longer be able to compete. And it’s only a matter of time before photovoltaic systems will gain widespread acceptance and, for economic reasons alone, we will see solar panels in every new building.”
Renewable energies will become so competitive that implementing them will become a ‘no brainer’.
In ten years’ time, based on conservative estimates, 15 % of single-family homes in Germany will have an energy storage system. When you consider that there are currently six million single-family homes in the country, this equates to a total of 800,000 energy storage systems that will need to be developed, installed and produced for the German market alone. Attention will also turn to many new markets, including those in which grid stability, a reliable power supply and energy self-sufficiency are even more important than for German customers.
With E3/DC home power stations, therefore, the future looks bright for Hager Group. Or, as Jean Lasserre puts it, “…energy storage is already a very promising market for us. In the future, it looks set to get even more interesting.”
