Developer SMT Energy and Software-focused energy storage system integrator FlexGen have announced the start of operations of a 160MW/320MWh energy storage facility in Houston, Texas, US.
Announced 9 September, the Houston IV battery energy storage system (BESS) project joins more than 12 projects from SMT and FlexGen built to support the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.
Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services were provided by Irby Construction Company.
In February 2025 SMT secured a US$135 million funding for the Houston IV project, then in May, SMT and utility CenterPoint Energy broke ground on the project.
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SMT and FlexGen highlighted that Houston IV was commissioned in six weeks, “cutting the time of deployment by 3x from the original timeline.”
The BESS project comes at a meaningful time for ERCOT, setting a new hourly peak load record on 22 July of 91.1GW, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Occurring during a heat wave, the 22 July peak was 6% greater than the previous peak load record of 85.5GW on 10 August 2023. EIA said it was met with 48% of generation from natural gas and 32% from solar.
The Nodal Protocol Revision Request (NPRR) “establishes a one-time advanced grid support incentive programme to encourage inverter-based resources (IBRs) that would not otherwise be required to provide advanced grid support to implement advanced grid support within 18 months of receiving the award notification.”
According to ERCOT documents detailing the programme, ERCOT staff reviewed NPRR, which was introduced with the intention of making the market an “industry leader for grid reliability and resilience”, and said it would have a positive market impact.
In April 2025, Trina Storage partnered with FlexGen on a 371MWh BESS for SMT, also in Houston. That project uses Trina Storage’s Elementa 2 BESS solution.
Earlier this year, FlexGen acquired Clean Energy Services, a US-based services company that has commissioned over 15GWh of BESS projects. The financial terms of that deal were not disclosed.
Battery Asset Management Summit USA 2026 will be held 15-16 September in Garden Grove, California, hosted by Energy-Storage.news publisher Solar Media (part of the Informa Group). The agenda emphasises addressing the roles of AI, cybersecurity, and second-life applications, broken down into two tracks: Technical Asset Management and Commercial Asset Management. This year, the conference is also co-located with Solar & Storage Finance Summit USA. Visit the official site for more details.
