Salt River Project (SRP) and AES have commenced construction of the first standalone battery-based energy storage project in Arizona.
Image: A mobile substation of Salt River Project. Photo: courtesy of SmugMug, Inc.
The energy storage project, with a capacity of 10MW to be built in Chandler. will offer peaking capacity that will deliver power into the grid during high peak demand periods for the company’s customers.
It will generate enough power to cover 2,400 households in the greater Phoenix area for up to four hours.
The energy storage solution for SRP will be provided by Fluence, which is a recently created energy storage joint venture of AES and Siemens.
SRP general manager and CEO Mike Hummel said: “Energy storage is already providing a wealth of services to central Arizona’s grid through other deployments, from supporting the growth of renewables to boosting reliability on transmission and distribution grids.
“This latest investment will add much-needed efficiency and value for our more than one million electric consumers.”
SRP has signed a 20-year agreement with AES under which the latter will provide it the 10MW, 40MWh battery-based energy storage system. An SRP distribution substation will be used for charging the energy storage system to be based on the Advancion energy storage technology platform of Fluence.
AES Southland Energy president Ken Zagzebski said: “AES is committed to developing solutions which will accelerate a cleaner and greener energy future.
“This project will allow SRP to continue meeting customer demands while also supporting the ongoing integration of renewable power sources.”
AES has selected Mortenson as the EPC construction partner for the energy storage project. Mortenson will carry out engineering, procurement and construction for the remainder of plant portion of the project.
In late February, AES’ subsidiary AES Distributed Energy along with Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC) started construction on the Lāwa’i Solar and Energy Storage Project on Kauai’s south shore. The project is made up of a 28MW solar photovoltaic (PV) and a 100MWh energy storage system with duration of five hours.