SRP to add 2 battery storage systems to the Valley in 2024
Oct 30, 2022, 6:30 AM | Updated: 11:12 am
(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
PHOENIX — Salt River Project announced Thursday it has entered into a contract that’ll bring online two grid-charged battery storage systems in the Phoenix area by summer 2024.
The storage systems will have a combined output of 340 megawatts, equivalent to enough energy to power over 76,000 average size residential homes through a four-hour period, SRP said in a press release.
There’ll be two sites on both sides of the Valley through contracts made with Plus Power, a developer of utility scale energy storage projects.
In Avondale, the Sierra Vista project will be a 250 megawatt, four-hour battery storage system, while in Gilbert, the Superstition project will be a 90 megawatt, four-hour battery storage system.
“SRP is proud of our early investments in battery storage and clean energy,” Kelly Barr, SRP’s chief strategy, corporate services and sustainability executive, said in the release.
“These early deployments will help both SRP and the industry gain experience with this technology, which will play a major role in reducing carbon emissions.”
The projects were chosen from the all-source request for proposals process and will be owned by a subsidiary of Power Plus.
SRP’s ability to have dispatch control will allow the company to choose what time of the day it’ll use the four-hour energy output on its grid, which is usually done during high energy demand periods and when renewable resources are unavailable.
The systems will utilize Tesla lithium-ion technology and boost SRP’s total commitment to battery storage to over 800 megawatt by 2024 — enough power for over 180,000 average size homes.
“Adding more large-scale batteries on our system and working with developers so SRP controls the times of day we deploy batteries onto our grid greatly improves our operational experience with this technology while providing us opportunity to manage charging and discharging as it fits our customers needs,” Barr added.
SRP plans to soon develop the Sonoran Energy Center, which is set to be the biggest solar plus battery project in Arizona.
An additional battery storage project known as the Storey Energy Center was contracted to be added near Coolidge. The projects are scheduled to be operational in 2023.
