Sian Crampsie
SunEdison is to team up with Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) to finance and deliver 50 MW of energy storage for Southern California Edison (SCE).
The two companies have been awarded storage system contracts under SCE’s 2013 Local Capacity Requirement solicitation and will be built on commercial and industrial customer sites throughout the West Los Angeles basin.
SCE will purchase capacity from the storage systems under a 10-year capacity contract, and expects to use the electricity stored in part to offset the power once produced by the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear power plant and other soon-to-be retired gas-fired plants. This program is part of SCE’s plan to modernize the grid by adding 2.2 GW of newer, cleaner resources including energy storage and renewables by 2022.
AMS specialises in the creation of ‘hybrid-electric buildings’ by deploying large networks of battery systems in targeted buildings where electric utilities need grid support. It can shift an entire fleet of buildings from grid power to battery power to provide real time support to the electric grid.
Once completed, the AMS storage projects will be acquired by Terraform Power, a subsidiary of SunEdison that owns and operates renewable energy projects developed by its parent company. The first fleet of energy storage systems is expected to begin commercial operation in 2016 in Irvine, California.
"AMS’ energy storage solutions are truly ground-breaking," said Tim Derrick, SunEdison’s general manager of Advanced Solutions. "With these systems, the utility will for the first time be tapping into energy stored by its own customers to provide grid support during times of high demand. SCE deserves great credit for being the first utility to issue local capacity contracts for behind-the-meter, aggregated battery storage."
