20 MW Energy Storage For San Diego Utility
San Diego Gas and Electric has signed a contract with Hecate Energy Bancroft for a 20 MW energy storage system. It was reported that this amount of electricity will be enough for 28,000 households for four hours. The lithium-ion battery system will be the largest in the San Diego area.
“Furthermore, SDG&E is proud to launch an advanced energy storage facility to harness solar, wind and other sources of energy so that we can supply it to our customers when they need it most,” explained Scott Drury, an SDG&E executive.
San Diego has ranked in the top US cities for solar power, so adding energy storage there is only sensible. There is no reason why one would not expect solar power to continue growing in San Diego, so energy storage may as well.
In fact, energy storage has been recognized by California policymakers as being an integral piece of the renewable energy landscape: “Assembly Bill 2514 directed the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to adopt an energy storage program and procurement target. As a result, the CPUC established an energy storage target of 1,325 MW by 2020—the largest in the nation for the states investor owned electric utilities (Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric).”
Having renewable energy storage portfolios seems to have helped states grow their renewable energy storage resources, so it only appears to be sensible to establish energy storage goals as well. Having such goals can also positively impact local businesses because they are motivated to provide technology, expertise and labor to meet them.
Energy storage might have initially seemed like technology that owners of their own solar power systems were most interested in, however, some utilities have been coming on board, as we see with this very large system.
It wasn’t long ago that Northern California’s utility, PG&E was recognized for its 4 MW / 24 MWh energy storage system and now SDG&E is following suit with its own. The southern California utility provides energy to about 3.5 million people and employs approximately 5,000.
Image Credit: Doug Letterman, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
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