Battery manufacturer and developer NEC Energy Solutions is to supply Southern California Edison (SCE) with its first grid energy storage pilot system under a procurement programme established last year.
The NEC ES GSS grid storage solution is a ‘plug-and-play’ procurement strategy being used by the Californian utility to pilot energy storage as a grid stabilising solution. It allows SCE to employ energy storage with a variety of features and configurations on-demand and could be installed almost anywhere across the state to support SCE pilot programmes.
The first storage system delivered under the procurement programme will include 3.4MWh of containerised lithium-ion batteries, a 3MW power conversion system and NEC Energy Solution’s software controls.
The energy storage system will be installed to prevent conventional grid upgrades that are becoming increasingly challenging, particularly in dense urban environments such as those found in SCE service territory. NEC Energy will also provide service and maintenance offerings to the utility for the upkeep of the energy storage system.
“Commercialisation of energy storage in a way that allows quick and easy procurement has always been a goal of ours,” said Bud Collins, CEO, NEC Energy Solutions, in a statement. “We worked extensively with SCE on this innovative programme to make energy storage transactional while ensuring safety, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of the technology. Programmes like this will make energy storage – a fast, flexible, clean, and dispatchable resource – an integral part of the grid.”
Recently, SCE and GE announced that they plan to install the world’s first battery storage and gas turbine hybrid. SCE is one of California's three investor owned utilities that make up around 75% of the state's electricity supply andare bound by AB2514, the mandate that orders the utilities to put 1.3GW of energy storage on the grid by 2020.
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