The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has continued its 2024 energy storage deployment charge after it cleared 650MW worth of battery storage capacity for commercial operation during the month of June, according to the system operator’s monthly generation interconnection status report.
It’s expected that Texas will be the leading state in terms of BESS deployment this year, according to data published by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), which predicts the Lone Star State to deploy 6.4GW of new battery storage capacity in 2024, ahead of California’s forecasted 5.2GW of additions.
Enjoy 12 months of exclusive analysis
- Regular insight and analysis of the industry’s biggest developments
- In-depth interviews with the industry’s leading figures
- Annual digital subscription to the PV Tech Power journal
- Discounts on Solar Media’s portfolio of events, in-person and virtual
Or continue reading this article for free
Texas sits in second place behind California in terms of US states with the most operational BESS capacity and still has some way to go if it wants to take the number one spot, after the Golden State recently surpassed 10GW of cumulative installed BESS capacity.
As indicated in the Texas system operator’s most recent Monthly Outlook for Resource Adequacy (MORA) report, ERCOT currently has 4,738.8MW of operational BESS capacity.
Forecasted 86GW August peak electricity demand
The 640MW of new BESS capacity comes at an ideal time for Texas, as it approaches the month of August where ERCOT has historically witnessed its peak electricity demand.
Evidently, the system operator expects this year to be no different, and has forecasted a peak electricity demand of 86,017MW, which would be an all-time high for ERCOT.
Last year was a record-breaking year for ERCOT as the Texas grid operator saw demand for electricity surpass 80GW on 49 different days throughout the summer, something that had only ever occurred once before 2023.
Not only this, but the grid operator saw its record peak electricity demand broken on ten separate occasions throughout the summer, culminating in a 85,435MW record peak on 10 August 2023 (as illustrated in the graph below).
650MW of new BESS capacity in ERCOT
In total, five new battery storage projects were cleared for commercial operation dates (COD) during the month of June, including Engie’s Five Wells BESS facility located in Bell County and co-located with the company’s 320MW Five Wells solar project that was brought online last year.
Rated at 221MW, Engie’s Five Wells battery storage facility became the largest operational storage facility in terms of capacity on the grid. The title was previously held by the 200MW Libra BESS facility, also owned by Engie, following the French multinational IPP’s acquisition of Broad Reach Power which carried out initial development of the project.
Two standalone battery storage projects owned and developed by Plus Power were also cleared for operation – Anemoi Energy Storage located in Hidalgo County and Ebony Energy Storage in Comal County, rated at 205MW and 204MW, respectively.
The remainder of the capacity was made up by two projects developed by HEN Infrastructure – a venture formed between developer Hunt Energy Network and the global wealth and asset management arm of Manulife.
The two projects, known as Farmersville West BESS 1 and Mainland BESS, each comprise 9.9MW of storage capacity and were processed through ERCOT’s less stringent interconnection process for projects smaller than 10MW – which ERCOT refers to as “small gen” projects.
Progress for NextEra Texas project
Utility-scale renewable energy developer NextEra Energy Resources (NEER) is one of many developers looking to grow its energy storage footprint in ERCOT over the next few years, and recently obtained a tax abatement for a BESS development in Texas.
At a 9 July, 2024 meeting, commissioners at Hill County approved a reinvestment zone and tax abatement agreement to NEER-owned subsidiary Hubbard Energy Storage II, LLC for the development of a 100MW BESS – expected to cost the developer US$115 million.
The Hubbard site located east of Bynum in Hill County is also expected to include a 300MW wind facility, as reported on a NEER website for the project.
NEER has yet to submit an ERCOT interconnection request for the storage portion of the project but holds three queue positions for the wind portion (queue numbers 22INR0499, 27INR0052, 27INR0053) under the name Aquilla Lake Wind which the facility is also known as.
Frosty reception for Black Mountain BESS facility
Elsewhere in Texas, representatives from Black Mountain Energy Storage (BMES) received a somewhat frosty reception from commissioners at Kerr County, as the developer introduced plans for its 120MW/240MWh East West BESS facility at a taxable value of US$86 million.
After the brief presentation during the 22 July 2024 county meeting, Kerr County commissioner Jonathan Letz addressed the BMES representatives stating that the project didn’t “make much sense” to him, describing the 2-hour duration facility as a “band-aid” when it came to addressing power outages in the area.
Rich Paces, another commissioner at Kerr County and volunteer firefighter, went on to say that he’d heard a lot of concerns from residents surrounding battery fires, and made reference to recent fires at BESS facilities in California.
After representatives from BMES attempted to address commissioners’ concerns, Letz rounded off the discussion stating that although BMES is welcome to submit an application for an abatement, he didn’t see it being successful.
Letz went on to say that he was struggling to see how the facility would benefit Kerr County, even suggesting BMES “go to Houston” for the abatement instead.
BMES holds an ERCOT interconnection queue position for the project (queue number 25INR0202) and expects to commence construction on the project during the third quarter of 2025, with commercial operation scheduled for the end of 2026.
