E.ON has announced plans to build two utility-scale battery projects in the USA.
The Texas Waves energy storage projects will be located at E.ON’s existing wind farms in Pyron and Inadale in western Texas, and will have a total storage capacity of nearly 20 MW. The projects will help E.ON establish itself as an energy storage provider in the US market, it said.
E.ON will collaborate with USA-based Greensmith Energy to build the two 9.9 MW Texas Wave projects, which will be based on lithium-ion technology. The batteries will connect to E.ON’s wind farms and provide system services for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market, balance out fluctuations across the grid, and improve supply security.
E.ON and Greensmith also partnered in the construction of Iron Horse, E.ON’s first grid-connected battery project, located near Tuscon, Arizona.
Iron Horse is a 10 MW energy storage system located at a 2 MW solar plant and is due to come on-line in the first half of 2017.
E.ON is an investor in Greensmith Energy, one of the largest providers of energy storage software and integration services in the USA.
According to Greentech Media, the US storage market grew 243 per cent in 2015 and is projected to surpass the 1 GW mark in 2019, and by 2020 it will be a 1.7 GW market valued at $2.5 billion.
