PG&E teams up with Green Charge for aggregated grid storage project

Dive Brief:

Green Charge Networks has teamed up with Pacific Gas & Electric to deliver grid services in northern and central California from distributed energy storage.
Under the partnership, Green Charge will develop and aggregate a fleet of energy storage systems in San Jose to evaluate how customer-sited energy storage can be used to support the grid during periods of high electric demand.
The Green Charge storage systems will be used to provide capacity relief at selected distribution substations and will be integrated with a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) being developed collaboratively by PG&E and GE Grid Solutions.

Dive Insight:

Green Charge, which is 80% owned by French energy giant Engie (formerly GDF Suez), has been using a cost savings model to expand its energy storage market share.

In the spring, it launched the installation of 7.4 MWh of energy storage devices at 14 sites in nine locations in a San Diego school district. The company says its system will save the Grossmont Union High School District more than $6.4 million in reduced utility costs over the life of the project.

Last October, the company signed a power efficiency agreement with the California Independent System Operator that will enable its customers with energy storage systems to earn up to $250,000 in extra revenue for the sale of otherwise unused stored capacity.

In the recently announced San Jose project, Green Charge says its storage systems will relieve stress on the grid and provide services such as voltage anomaly mitigation and automated economic dispatch. Throughout and after the conclusion of the pilot program, Green Charge says it will continue to provide power efficiency savings services to customers for the remainder of the 10-year contracts.