Dive Brief:
- Portland General Electric announced Friday it’s adding 400 MW of battery storage it says can provide enough emissions-free electricity to power about 260,000 homes for four hours during times of typical peak demand from 5 to 9 p.m. on weekdays.
- Two 200 MW projects will each feature four-hour duration lithium-ion battery storage, for a total capacity of 800 MWh each, or 1,600 MWh combined. PGE said it’s the largest single procurement of standalone energy storage by a utility in the U.S. outside California.
- The projects are a significant addition to PGE’s wind, solar and hydro resources, providing grid reliability, resiliency and flexibility while helping manage costs, CEO and President Maria Pope said.
Dive Insight:
The projects include a site in Troutdale, Oregon, near Porland. The 200-MW Troutdale facility is owned by NextEra Energy, which will operate it. Storage developer Eolian has been developing it since 2018 and it’s expected to begin service by the end of 2024.
PGE will purchase the output from a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources through a 20-year Storage Capacity Agreement.
Seaside, also a 200-MW facility, will be owned and operated by PGE. The North Portland storage site has been under development by Eolian since 2017 and is expected to begin service by the middle of 2025, PGE said.
“Anticipating the need for resilient, flexible and carbon-free grid-balancing resources to serve the dynamic growth of the Portland metro area led us to focus on the development of battery energy storage sites at key substations directly serving load in the region,” said Eric Stoutenburg, Eolian’s director of energy storage.
Rebecca Kujawa, president and CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, said the Troutdale battery storage project, with the Wheatridge Renewable Energy Facilities, also in partnership with NextEra Energy Resources, is the result of “great collaboration.”
The Wheatridge facilities, near Lexington, Oregon, are the first utility-scale energy system in North America to co-locate wind, solar and battery storage.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional details about the size of each storage project.
