ESS announced the commissioning of an Energy Warehouse (EW) system earlier this week, located at the Contingency Base Integration Training Evaluation Center (CBITEC) operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), located at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
This EW has been incorporated into a tactical microgrid at CBITEC and will demonstrate the key role that LDES, specifically iron flow battery technology, can play to reduce fuel consumption at Contingency Bases (CB) such as Forward Operating Bases or other temporary use locations providing humanitarian assistance or disaster relief.
The announcement followed deliveries of EW systems to Burbank Water and Power (BWP) and the Turlock Irrigation District (TID), further expanding the company’s deployment footprint in California.
The ESS system delivered to BWP will be paired with an on-site solar array and located on the utility’s EcoCampus where ESS technology will demonstrate the critical role of LDES in a fully renewable grid. The partnership with BWP was first announced in November 2022.
At TID, the EW will support Project Nexus and be paired with the first ever installation of solar panels over irrigation canals in the United States. Project Nexus aims to conserve water resources by reducing evaporation while generating clean energy, reducing diesel generation and reducing energy costs. The project has the potential to contribute significantly to the state’s clean energy and water conservation goals. ESS’ partnership with TID was first announced in February 2023.
These deliveries followed the September startup of six Energy Warehouse systems delivered to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). These EW systems were the first to be delivered under a framework agreement first announced in 2022. Under that agreement, ESS will deliver up to 200 megawatts (MW)/2 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of iron flow LDES systems to SMUD. Once fully operational and paired with renewable energy, 2 GWh of iron flow battery systems are expected to enable the elimination of approximately 284,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year from SMUD’s system.
Finally, at the end of 2023, ESS successfully ‘lifted’ its first Energy Center (EC), a key milestone in the manufacturing process. The EC is a utility-scale, front-of-the-meter long-duration energy storage product which provides up to eight hours of energy storage with a flexible, scalable platform to meet the LDES needs of utilities worldwide. This inaugural EC system will be commissioned and delivered to Portland General Electric later this year.
“With these new deployments and progress on our utility-scale Energy Center, ESS is entering 2024 with strong momentum” said Eric Dresselhuys, ESS CEO. “Over the next year, we will continue to scale our manufacturing and deliver the long-duration energy storage solutions needed by utility and industrial customers worldwide to accelerate the clean energy transition.”
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