Dive Brief:
- Imperial Irrigation District (IID), a community-owned California utility, is planning to install a $68 million battery storage system aimed at helping integrate 50 MW of solar power into the municipal provider's system in southern California.
- The storage system is part of a settlement with FERC, related to IID’s involvement in the Sept. 8, 2011, Southwest blackout which left more than 5 million people in Southern California, Arizona and Baja California, Mexico, without power for up to 12 hours.
- After the blackout, FERC directed utilities involved to increase reliability measures. IID's storage system, PV-Tech reports, will serve as a power backup and smooth energy supply imbalances caused by variable rooftop solar generation.
Dive Insight:
Looking to integrate up to 50 MW of solar power into its system, IID will install a $68 million battery storage system rather than construct a new gas-fired facility. That plan caught the attention, and garnered the approval, of the local newspaper, The Desert Sun. The paper's editorial board wrote: "We applaud investment such as IID’s in this type of vital infrastructure that will help to boost overall grid reliability and keep California on the march toward its green energy goals."
The project is part of a settlement related to a widespread 2011 blackout. FERC enforcement staff found IID violated several reliability standard requirements and as a result the utility agreed to pay a civil penalty of $12 million, with $9 million to be invested in reliability enhancement measures, including construction of one or more utility-scale battery energy storage facilities within IID’s transmission operations area.
The storage will help integrate power from the 30-MW Midway III solar farm in Imperial County, Calif., and a 20-MW facility near Niland, Calif. Construction on Midway III is projected to begin in late 2015, with the site expected to be operational and delivering renewable energy to IID by the latter half of 2016.
