Bayernwerk’s power grid was driven by the historical and future expansion of PV. At that time, many requests for the connection of new generation plants could no longer be met. Furthermore, the addition of wind turbines and battery storage systems in the grid area had become increasingly important – however, this additional generation capacity often could not be connected to the grid on an ad-hoc basis due to the limited capacity of the grids.
An expansion of grid connections could have been made possible through the addition of new generation capacities behind existing grid connections, where the contractual connection capacity was lower than the installed generation capacity of the underlying plants (“Cable Pooling”). This approach aimed to integrate more generation capacities into the grid without increasing the maximum peak generation in the grid area and exacerbating congestions. As a shaper of the energy transition in Bavaria, Bayernwerk wanted to examine to what extent this approach could integrate more renewable generators into the existing grid and how a process for this could be designed.

E-Bridge conducted an analysis of the functionality and use cases for cable pooling of grid connections, as well as the existing possibilities and the specification of a process for the connection and operation of expanded plants and the role of Bayernwerk in this. Subsequently, E-Bridge conducted a quantitative analysis of the plants that could be additionally connected to the grid through expansion at the local level in Bavaria and regionalized them. Additionally, a qualitative reality check was conducted to determine to what extent grid technical restrictions had to be considered when examining expansion requests.

The technical potential of cable pooling to increase the capacity of the grids for renewable energy plants and battery storage was determined, and the plants that could be additionally connected to the grid through expansion were regionalized. Subsequently, a generic process was developed through which Bayernwerk could handle future requests for expansion and thus accelerate the energy transition. Bayernwerk was also provided with a catalogue of specific measures to facilitate cable pooling.