sonnen launches the sonnenPro Compact 261 commercial battery
With 261 kWh, 125 kW and a forecast-based energy manager, the storage pioneer from Wildpoldsried turns its home battery know-how towards small and mid-sized businesses.
sonnen made its name with batteries for private homes and with virtual power plants that link its customers into one network. Now the company from Wildpoldsried is carrying that experience into business. With the sonnenPro Compact 261 it has presented a standardised commercial storage system, together with a new energy management system for industry and commerce called sonnenPro EMS.
Built for workshops, farms and warehouses
The new battery is aimed at small and medium-sized companies in industry, the trades, logistics and agriculture that want an energy supply which costs less and can be planned. The background is familiar to any business owner: high energy prices continue to squeeze costs and margins across the German Mittelstand, and sonnen positions the combination of storage and software as a way to cut energy costs, steer energy flows deliberately and depend less on rising electricity prices.
261 kilowatt hours in a compact cabinet
The sonnenPro Compact stores 261 kWh and delivers 125 kW. Its compact design allows installation indoors as well as outdoors, and because it arrives ready to connect, it can be installed simply and quickly. If a company's demand grows, several units can be cascaded to cover a larger storage requirement. An optional backup extension lets the battery step in immediately during short power cuts and keep critical loads running.
An energy manager that plans ahead
The second new product is arguably the more interesting one. The sonnenPro EMS works on the basis of forecasts. It covers the classic applications, such as optimising self-consumption and shaving load peaks, but also handles atypical grid use and optimised load control under time-variable electricity tariffs and grid fees. In practice this means a company can draw power when it is cheap, for example when renewable generation is high or the grid is lightly loaded.
Atypical grid use is a German arrangement in which a business shifts its load at the grid connection into periods that relieve the grid, in return for lower grid fees. According to sonnen, the battery and the EMS make up for the missing grid supply at the relevant times, so production processes themselves do not have to change, and grid fees fall noticeably.
Open to other manufacturers
sonnen stresses that the system is highly open. The EMS can integrate a wide range of devices from different manufacturers, including AC and DC charging infrastructure, meters and heat pumps, so the energy system can grow with existing and future requirements. Through the sonnenPro app and an online portal, companies see all relevant energy flows and system data in real time.
Andreas Plenk, Chief Revenue Officer of sonnen, points to the company's 15 years of experience in developing and networking intelligent storage. In his view, businesses can cut their energy costs substantially, steer load peaks intelligently and make energy predictable again.
One step in a wider range
The Compact complements the commercial storage sonnen already offers: cascade solutions based on the sonnenBatterie for smaller companies, and the sonnenPro FlexStack for individual large projects. The sonnenPro Compact can be ordered now, with deliveries from the third quarter. sonnen has developed its technology in Germany since 2010 and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell since 2019.
What homeowners can take from it
The logic of the commercial system mirrors what a well planned solar home does on a smaller scale: use your own solar power first, keep peaks off the grid connection and move flexible loads into cheap hours. If you are planning a home battery, our guides on sizing a home battery and on dynamic electricity tariffs explain how the same principles work in a house.
Written by the sunaliv editorial team about an announcement by sonnen. This article is editorial and unpaid; the images were provided by sonnen. Spotted an error? Write to info@nextao.de and we will correct it openly.
