Southern California Edison (SCE) has opened the 32 MWh Tehachapi Energy Storage Project – the largest battery storage installation in North America.
The 32 MWh battery energy storage system features lithium-ion batteries housed inside a 6,300 square-foot facility at SCE’s Monolith substation in Tehachapi, Calif.
The project is strategically located in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area that is projected to generate up to 4,500 MW of wind energy by 2016.
The battery system supplied by LG Chem is comprised of 604 battery racks, 10,872 battery modules and 608,832 individual battery cells – the same lithium-ion cells installed in battery packs for General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt.
The project costs about $50 million with matching funds from SCE and the energy department. Over a two-year period, the project will demonstrate the performance of the lithium-ion batteries in actual system conditions and the capability to automate the operations of the battery energy storage system and integrate its use into the utility grid.
“This installation will allow us to take a serious look at the technological capabilities of energy storage on the electric grid,” says Imre Gyuk, energy storage program manager in the DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. “It will also help us to gain a better understanding of the value and benefit of battery energy storage.”
Over a two-year period, the project will examine the performance of the Li-ion batteries in actual system conditions. SCE also will evaluate its ability to automate operations of the battery energy storage system for integration with the utility grid. Primary goals of the project are to demonstrate the effectiveness of Li-ion battery and smart inverter technologies for improved grid performance and to assist in the integration of variable renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar power.
“The role of energy storage in the electric grid will continue to increase with the growth of renewable energy and distributed energy systems, and our collaboration with SCE will provide key insights for current and future energy storage projects,” says Sung-Hoon Jang, vice president of the energy solutions group at LG Chem.
