Dive Brief:
- West Coast-based Axiom Exergy announced this week it will partner with New York's Consolidated Edison on an energy storage project focused on refrigeration load, as part of the utility's bid to stave off costly investments in its Brooklyn and Queens service areas.
- Axiom will install between 1.5 MW and 2 MW of storage systems in the area, which will be capable of shifting 6 MWh to 8 MWh of load.
- According to Axiom, businesses with large refrigeration-based energy loads can use the storage systems to reduce their peak electricity demand by up to 40%.
Dive Insight:
It's been a good month for Axiom, a company focused on an innovative approach to energy storage: harnessing large refrigeration loads in an effort to shift cooling to off-peak hours. In early August, the company announced it had raised $2.5 million from investors supporting the approach, and a month later said its systems had been tapped by Consolidated Edison for use in the New York City area.
Axiom President and Co-Founder Amrit Robbins said the approach can help address peak demand as well as work with grocery store and cold storage facility owners to "enhance their razor-thin profit margins."
"By deploying refrigeration battery systems, these locations can convert power-hungry refrigeration systems into intelligent ‘batteries’ that can respond dynamically to the needs of the facility and the grid operator, taking into account energy prices, weather patterns, and grid programs like demand response," Robbins said in a statement.
The $5 million project could provide up to 8 MWh of energy. According to Axiom, its refrigeration battery can shift six hours of a building’s refrigeration-based electricity loads by utilizing the existing refrigeration system’s excess capacity to “store cooling” at night by freezing a tank of salt water and then using the frozen tanks for cooling during afternoon hours.
Con Edison, as part of New York's Reforming the Energy Vision, has been focused on using non-wires alternatives in Brooklyn and Queens to address a pending 69 MW shortfall. First known as the Brooklyn-Queens Demand Management project, the project is designed to stave off a $1.2 billion substation upgrade.
