The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) has selected the Pomona Energy Storage Facility to receive a National Recognition Award in the 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards competition. 

A National Recognition Award is a prestigious distinction honoring projects that demonstrate exceptional achievement in engineering.

The Pomona Energy Storage Facility is a 20 megawatt battery storage facility with a discharge capacity of 80 megawatt-hours. AltaGas owns and operates the storage project at its Pomona Energy Facility natural-gas fired peaking power plant in the east Los Angeles Basin. POWER Engineers Incorporated (POWER) provided detailed design to AltaGas for the project and ARB was the contractor.

The project had an accelerated schedule in order to prevent Southern California Edison customers from experiencing blackouts from constricted fuel supplies. Construction of the battery system facility was completed in less than four months, which is the industry's fastest completion of a project this size. Even with the accelerated schedule, the project was delivered on time and on budget.

The facility is one of the largest battery energy storage systems (BESS) in North America. The lithium-ion batteries, software control platform and power conversion technology were provided by Wärtsilä's Greensmith Energy Management Systems, an industry leader in the energy storage space. It reduces the need to fire up natural gas generators at peak times while at the same time mitigating fluctuations from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. 

Southern California Edison purchases energy from the project under a 10-year agreement, integrating more renewable energy into its system and helping its customers avoid costly outages.

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