Ikea stores owner Ingka Investments has partnered with developer Apex Clean Energy and system integrator Powin for a battery storage project in Texas, US, set to come online imminently.
The project is Ingka’s first ever battery storage project, it said in an announcement today (6 September).
Cameron Storage will be located in Cameron County, Texas, and will have a power rating of 16.4MW when it enters operation in the next few weeks. It is co-located with Ingka Investments’ Cameron Wind farm, a 165MW facility which started commercial operations in 2015 and was developed by Apex, which then sold the project to Ingka.
Ingka did not specify the energy storage capacity (MWh) of the battery storage project. Most in Texas, where the electricity grid is operated by ERCOT, have a discharge duration of two hours.
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Powin supplied the battery energy storage system equipment while Worley provided engineering, procurement and construction services.
Apex also sold the 98MW Hoopeston Wind project to Ingka, but continues to manage both wind assets. Ingka owns and operates the majority of Ikea stores worldwide although does not own the brand, and aims to become climate positive across its Ikea stores by 2030.
“This is an important step in our journey towards becoming climate positive. Going forward we aim to invest in a mix of wind, solar, and energy storage. Investing in all three technologies will help to provide renewable energy during more hours of the year and optimise the use of our grid connections,” said Peter van der Poel, managing director at Ingka Investments.
Ken Young, Apex Clean Energy CEO added: “Utility-scale energy storage unlocks the full potential of clean power to decarbonise our economy while providing increased reliability and certainty for our electric grid.”
Texas market has over 3GW of grid-scale battery storage online with that figure set to grow to 9.5GW by October 2024, according to ERCOT.
It was in the news this week amidst proposed reforms to grid-scale batteries’ state of charge requirements, which were vehemently opposed by battery storage operators and traders as detailed in our coverage (Premium access).
