Colocating battery energy storage systems alongside renewables projects will be ‘critical’ to energy networks in the future, and could help level up debt financing.

Updated 10 January 2021: “These longer-duration 2 hour systems highlight a growing recognition of battery based energy storage systems as not only super-fast but also super-robust infrastructure assets that can serve a broader range of capacity and system balancing needs for 20 years or more.”

The world’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS) so far has gone into operation in Monterey County, California, US retail electricity and power generation company Vistra said yesterday.

The pilot project, which comprises two 1MW components, has been billed by its backers as the country’s first grid-scale distributed battery system.

Investor-owned energy company National Grid, responsible for electricity and gas delivery in New York, Massachusetts and Long Island, will build a 5MW / 40MWh energy storage facility in Long Island with NextEra Energy.