Sumitomo begins operation of 6 MW, 2 MWh battery for PJM frequency regulation

Dive Brief:

Sumitomo Corp. and its American subsidiary began operation of a 6 MW, 2 MWh energy storage system in Hamilton, Ohio, on Jan. 14.
The Willey Battery Utility LLC system is designed to provide supply-demand balancing services for the frequency regulation market operated by the PJM Interconnection.
The storage system, originally developed by Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc., includes three containers of lithium-ion batteries manufactured by Toshiba and three inverter units manufactured by Parker Hannifin.

Dive Insight:

The growth of wind and solar power projects has brought with it a growing need for energy storage to balance the intermittent supply of those renewable resources.

Sumitomo’s Willey Battery Utility in Ohio is meant to address the intermittency in the PJM Interconnection region by providing frequency regulation services.

“As a developer of wind and solar power plants which are unavoidably intermittent generation sources, we think it is quite important that we also contribute to the stabilization of power grids through balancing services,” Nick Hagiwara, director of the power and infrastructure group at Sumitomo Corp. of the Americas, said in a statement.

The growth of wind and solar power resources in the PJM Interconnection’s service area has increased the need for grid balancing services quickly within the RTO’s roughly 13 state footprint. About two-thirds of the 62 MW of storage deployed in the U.S. in 2014 was installed in PJM.

PJM has since put a temporary halt on its frequency regulation market while it studies the market, but developers continue to pursue projects as storage is increasingly seen as a viable alternative to thermal and hydro generation.

The Hamilton, Ohio, project was originally developed by RES Americas. In April 2015, Sumitomo acquired an interest in Willey Battery Utility from RES through Perennial Power Holdings, a U.S. subsidiary of Sumitomo Corp. It was the company’s first investment in a large-scale, stand-alone battery storage facility in the United States. At the time, Hagiwara said, “Sumitomo plans to expand beyond the PJM frequency regulation market with entry into potential marketplaces such as Texas and California.”