Page 78 - North American Clean Energy January/February 2019 Issue

energy storage
Utility-Scale Storage
Across the Grid
by Randolph Mann
78
JANUARY•FEBRUARY2019 /// www.nacleanenergy.com
AS FOLLOWERS OF THE ENERGY INDUSTRY
know, energy storage is growing at a phenomenal rate. Install size predictions that seemed aggressive only a few years ago,
now look to have been far too conservative. e pace of projects is not only picking up in places industry insiders would expect, like California, but also gaining traction in newer markets such as Canada, Arizona, and Indiana.
Developers and owners of utility-scale energy storage projects across North America are witnessing the expansion of the energy storage market rsthand. Leading U.S. utilities are actively implementing storage systems that will provide incremental capacity to the grid. Each system is designed to deliver slightly di erent services. Here is a brief list of projects that demonstrate the broad set of capabilities which today’s advanced storage systems can provide.
• Providing critical peaking capacity and grid support services:
e Grand Johanna system in Irvine (2 MW/9 MWh)
Developed in response to the Aliso Canyon gas leak in 2015; it
has been operational since the beginning of 2017.
• Primarily intended to relieve local capacity constraints caused by retiring fossil fuel units:
e Hummingbird Energy Storage project in Santa Clara County in Northern California (75 MW/300 MWh) Pending CPUC approval, it’s slated to be in service by December 2020.
• Intended to bolster local distribution networks enabling wires upgrades to be deferred:
e Wildcat Energy Storage project near Palm Springs
(3 MW/12 MWh).
ree separate Acorn Energy Storage projects under development in ousand Oaks, California (with a total combined storage capacity of 6.5 MW/26.5 MWh).
• Providing critical local capacity to a transmission constrained area of the grid:
e Quarantina project in Santa Barbara (10 MW/40 MWh) is energy storage facility will be operational by 2021.
In many of these cases, the utility customer purchases capacity, while the developer retains the ability to provide additional value-added energy and ancillary services
into the local market. Sometimes, however, a utility customer will purchase a bundled product including capacity, energy, and other ancillary services. is is the case with the 6.5 MW/26 MWh Don Lee system in Escondido, due to go online by 2021. Currently, several large utilities and Community Choice Aggregators have RFPs planned or ongoing in California, highlighting the success of the state’s energy storage goals. In fact, those targets are already being surpassed due to the ability of energy storage to provide capacity at rates competitive with natural gas generation.
California isn’t the only place in North America where energy storage is booming, though. Ontario, Canada, has been a hotbed of energy storage activity: e Stratford Energy Storage project is an 8.8 MW/40.8 MWh system located in the city of Stratford, and is the largest battery storage facility in Canada. It provides voltage control,