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Lumelec
Lumelec develops solar PV and EV charging strategy based on energy storage for its new building
Location: Lumelec site at Neuville-de-Poitou, France.
Challenge: To use on-site generated solar PV energy to reduce reliance on the grid, support EV charging without upgrading an existing electricity supply contract, and minimise carbon emissions
Solution:
Eaton xStorage Compact 20kW/50kWh
Eaton EV charger
Implementing Eaton’s Buildings as a Grid approach to the energy transition in buildings to create a flexible, scalable energy hub, based on renewable energy.
Result: A system that will reduce energy bills and carbon emissions by using xStorage Compact to manage and store on-site solar PV generation, reduce reliance on the grid, and support EV charging.
We wanted to harness the benefits of renewable energy for our business, and by developing a strategy for one of our own sites, based on Eaton’s xStorage Compact, we wanted to show our customers how they can adopt a similar approach in their buildings to save money on their energy bills and increase their energy independence from the grid.
Background
Lumelec is a forward-thinking electrical installation company, based in the Poitou-Charentes region of France. The company’s 110 employees work throughout the Vienne, Deux-Sèvres and Vendée departments, from bases in five locations, one of them being Neuville-de-Poitou in Vienne.
Construction work on new buildings at the Neuville-de-Poitou site, which provides office accommodation, as well as technical rooms and materials storage space, was completed in 2020. As part of this new development, Lumelec wanted to integrate four electric vehicle chargers without changing the site’s electricity contract to acquire higher electrical capacity because this would have resulted in extra costs.
As an electrical installation specialist, Lumelec also wants to use the system installed at Neuville-de-Poitou to demonstrate its own approach to managing renewable energy to show its customers how to make similar savings.
Challenge
Rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) panels were fitted to two buildings on the Neuville-de-Poitou site in 2021, and Lumelec asked Eaton how to make best use of the energy generated by them to help the business stay within its existing supply contract, add the EV chargers, and buy the least possible amount of peak-priced energy from the grid.
A key challenge in defining the system to be installed was the fact that the site largely comprised new buildings, with a very limited history of actual energy consumption, or PV production, and a largely unknown load curve. The buildings on site had simply not been in use for long enough for that data to exist.
The Lumelec team wanted cheaper off-peak energy from the grid to be stored during the night to power EV chargers the following day. Also, they wanted to be able to show how much self-generated energy from the solar panels the site was consuming every day and the quantity of carbon emissions saved as a result.
The storage system needed to be able to accommodate a mix of on-site renewable energy and off-peak energy from the grid to achieve the greatest possible overall saving on the site’s electricity bills, as well as ensure the site needed no more electricity than was available within its existing supply contract.
Benoit Jacquemin, CEO of Lumelec said:
“We wanted to work with Eaton to address this challenge because we work regularly with customers who want to keep energy bills down in new buildings, so we wanted to learn at the same time as saving money for our own business.”
Solution
Eaton’s xStorage Compact is a versatile battery energy storage system that enables customers to maximise solar energy self-consumption and avoid capacity issues related to the integration of on-site electric vehicle charging stations.
Building owners and facility managers can also use the system for additional needs (and for use cases other than EV charging, in fact), such as providing back-up power, peak shaving and load shifting.
The energy storage system that Eaton provided for Lumelec’s Neuville-de-Poitou site is an Eaton xStorage Compact 20kW/50kWh. The energy storage system is connected to the grid with Eaton power distribution panels including protection for the xStorage and a grid protection device to ensure compliance with the standards set out by VDE(Germany) and Enedis (France). In addition, Lumelec also installed an Eaton EV charger.
The system manages the output from a 100 kWp (kilowatt-peak) solar PV plant with the capability to reinject power to the grid and therefore benefit from feed-in tariffs, and a 50 kWp plant for self-consumption (storage, no resale). Kilowatt-peak is the unit of measurement for the output of a photovoltaic system.
This system is a manifestation of Eaton’s Buildings as a Grid approach to the energy transition which unites the power needs of buildings and EVs, with on-site renewable energy generation, thus creating secure, scalable, energy hubs.
Lumelec installed the system themselves, with technical support from Eaton, and both companies will be involved in tracking the performance of the system to make any adjustments necessary.
"As the name implies, the storage system is compact, so we were able to accommodate it easily on our site in a technical room – it doesn’t take up much space.” - Benoit Jacquemin adds.
Results
The storage system provided for Lumelec will support all their EV chargers without the need for the company to change their electricity contract, and if Lumelec wants to add more EV chargers in the future, the system can be expanded. Eaton’s Building Energy Management Software will be a good addition because it will provide greater insight into how to control and optimise energy flows to minimise costs and carbon footprint.
Lumelec can manage their energy consumption using the system to ensure they prioritise the use of their own solar PV energy, which is the cheapest for them. They can also use stored off-peak power to offset the cost of any peak-priced energy they have to buy from the grid and sell any excess energy they generate back to the grid.
Using solar power locally in this way reduces carbon emissions. Lumelec displays real-time statistics on a screen in the reception area of its Neuville-de-Poitou building so that employees and visitors can see how much self-generated energy from the solar panels the site is consuming each day and the quantity of carbon emissions avoided as a result.
We are so confident in what we have observed so far that we have already recommended to one of our customers that they adopt the same approach as we have done to integrate EV changers without the expense of upgrading their existing electricity supply contract.
