Dive Brief:
- AES Corp subsidiary Indianapolis Power and Light (IPL) began construction on its 20 MW lithium ion battery storage facility in Indiana which, according to the utility, will be one of the biggest energy storage facilities in the Midwest.
- The facility will add reliability to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) power grid by providing ancillary services to balance variations in supply and demand.
- AES Energy Storage, the technology provider for the project, was just named the leading energy storage systems integrator (ESSI) by Navigant Research. It built the 20 MW Tait battery storage project in Ohio, the 32 MW Laurel Mountain project in West Virginia, and was chosen by Southern California Edison to supply 100 MW of interconnected battery energy storage under a 20 year power purchase agreement.
Dive Insight:
The Indiana storage system’s 20 MW of interconnected battery storage is, according to AES Storage, the equivalent to 40 MW of flexible grid resources. The ancillary services the facility will provide include peak energy supply and system balancing power. The project is expected to be online by June 2016.
The MISO system covers the Canadian province of Manitoba and parts of 15 states, from Canadian border regions in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana to Gulf of Mexico regions in Louisiana and Texas.
AES Energy Storage was named number one by Navigant among energy storage providers on the basis of vision, go-to-market strategy, partners, production strategy, technology, geographic reach, sales, marketing and distribution, product performance, product quality and reliability, product portfolio, pricing, and staying power.
The top ten ESSIs, according to Navigant are (1) AES Energy Storage, (2) NEC Energy Solutions, (3) RES Americas, (4) LG CNS, (5) Younicos, (6) Green Charge Networks, (7) Sharp, (8) Greensmith Energy Management Systems, (9) ZBB Energy, and (10) S&C Electric.
