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When the Kattegat Centre in Djursland announces new inhabitants, it’s usually a shark, a penguin, or another sea-related animal. However, this time, it’s a more technological resident—a 20 kW VisBlue flow battery with 100 kWh moving behind the scenes in the Kattegat Centre’s Penguin House.
When VisBlue's 20 kW flow battery moves behind the scenes in the Kattegat Centre’s new penguin exhibit, it marks a significant milestone for VisBlue.
For VisBlue, whose existing customers include municipalities (schools, sports halls, nursing homes, etc.), housing associations, independent institutions, and industries, the Kattegat Centre becomes VisBlue’s first installation in a cultural and experience institution.
"It's significant,"
says Søren Bødker, CEO and co-founder of VisBlue.
"Energy-optimizing initiatives such as decentralized energy storage are key tools for achieving our shared climate goals while balancing (and securing) the energy accounts in companies," asserts Søren Bødker. "My team and I are therefore extremely pleased and proud that the Kattegat Centre has chosen to go with a VisBlue flow battery."
"I hope that the Kattegat Centre’s investment in VisBlue’s flow battery will make other cultural and experience institutions realize the solution and follow in the Kattegat Centre’s footsteps," explains Søren Bødker.
The Kattegat Centre is an energy-intensive facility because systems must continuously cool, purify, and calibrate to ensure the animals' well-being, and the Penguin House is no exception. Here, the temperature must be maintained around 7 degrees Celsius—both in the air and in the penguins' 200,000-liter pool, resulting in an annual energy consumption of 384,000 kWh for the Penguin House alone.
"Imagine a giant refrigerator with cold water, an ice machine, and air conditioning in the form of an advanced ventilation system that cleans the air 8-12 times an hour. That’s the Penguin House,"
says Karsten Bjerrum Nielsen, director and CEO of the Kattegat Centre.
Therefore, from the project’s start and all other projects, the Kattegat Centre has seen it as a moral and economic obligation to incorporate sustainability—regarding climate and environment, social and economic aspects. This principle applies to everything from design and layout, choice of components and systems, to energy supply and energy-optimizing solutions.
Savings in CO2 and Financial Terms
Here, VisBlue’s climate- and environmentally-friendly flow battery with built-in spot price optimization is an ideal solution. It allows the use of self-produced green surplus energy from the 1800 m2 solar panel system during the day and intelligently buys from the grid when prices are low, storing it in the battery for use when the sun has set. This increases the solar panel system’s utilization rate to 96% from the previous 87%, corresponding to an annual saving of approximately 10,000 kWh—a saving that affects both the financial and climate accounts.
Without the battery, this energy would be sold to the grid at an unreasonably low price, only to be bought back later at a much higher price to meet the energy needs of the systems during the evening and night hours when the sun isn’t shining and the solar panels aren’t producing.
"That saving matters," says Karsten Bjerrum Nielsen, managing director of the Kattegat Centre.
"The Kattegat Centre’s story revolves around the sea and the animals and the interplay between these and us humans, so we are naturally morally obligated to tell it responsibly through our installations and the machinery behind them," explains Karsten Bjerrum Nielsen.
"It’s about finding the right balance between the animals, the people, nature, and the economy; and VisBlue’s flow battery can help provide us with its climate and environmental benefits," he explains.
