MOSS LANDING — The Tesla Megapack battery power storage system at Moss Touchdown grew to become absolutely energized and licensed for market participation lately bringing 182.5-megawatts of saved power capability to the California energy grid.
Pacific Fuel and Electrical Co. introduced on Monday that Elkhorn Battery, named for its location at its Moss Touchdown electrical substation in Monterey County close to Elkhorn Slough, has been commissioned after closing testing. The battery power storage system was energized and licensed by the California Unbiased System Operator on April 7.
“We're ushering in a brand new period of electrical system reliability and delivering a imaginative and prescient into the longer term for our clients with the commissioning of the Tesla Megapack system in Moss Touchdown,” mentioned PG&E Company CEO Patti Poppe in a press launch. “We're dedicated to soundly delivering dependable and clear power in a means that achieves the best worth for our clients, however we are able to’t go it alone into this clear power future. Tasks like this require progressive companions, resembling Tesla, and PG&E will proceed to hunt out and work with the most effective and brightest to offer breakthrough clear power options for our clients.”
Battery power storage helps to combine renewable power sources resembling photo voltaic and wind, whereas enhancing the reliability of California’s power provide. Batteries are charged when power demand is low, or when photo voltaic manufacturing is excessive, after which present extra capability by sending that reserved energy to the grid when demand will increase.
The Elkhorn Battery system was designed, constructed, and is maintained by PG&E and Tesla, and is owned and operated by PG&E. It represents one of many largest utility-owned, lithium-ion battery power storage techniques on the earth.
The California Public Utilities Fee authorized the battery power storage system in November 2018, and the Monterey County Planning Fee authorized it in February 2020. Building on the website started in July 2020. It contains 256 Tesla Megapack battery items on 33 concrete slabs with every unit housing batteries and energy conversion tools in a single cupboard. Transformers and switchgears had been additionally put in together with the megapacks to attach power saved within the batteries with the 115-kilovolt electrical transmission system.
The battery power storage system has the capability to retailer and dispatch as much as 730 megawatt-hours of power to the electrical grid at a most fee of 182.5 MW for as much as 4 hours during times of excessive demand. The Tesla Megapack Elkhorn Battery system participates within the California Unbiased System Operator wholesale electrical markets, offering power and ancillary service to the facility grid.
PG&E now has contracts for battery power storage techniques totaling greater than 3,330 MW of capability being deployed all through California via 2024.
The techniques are a part of PG&E’s effort to acquire power sources caused by the California Public Utilities Fee’s 2021 resolution directing all load-serving entities within the state, together with investor-owned utilities resembling PG&E, to collectively procure 11.5 gigawatts of recent electrical energy sources.
The power would come on-line between 2023 and 2026 to help California’s greenhouse fuel discount coverage and to interchange electrical energy technology from the anticipated retirements of Southern California pure fuel vegetation and PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Energy Plant.
Up to now, 955.5 MW of the three,330 MW below contract of recent battery storage capability has been related to California’s electrical grid together with:
• 182.5 MW PG&E Elkhorn Battery in Monterey County, commissioned 2022.
• 200 MW Diablo Storage System in Contra Costa County, commissioned 2022.
• 60 MW Coso Battery Storage situated in Inyo County, commissioned 2022.
• 400 MW Vistra Moss Touchdown Battery Power Storage Facility in Monterey County, commissioned 2021.
• 63 MW NextEra Blythe system in Riverside County, commissioned 2021.
• 50 MW Gateway system in San Diego County, commissioned 2021.
PG&E anticipates an extra 1,400-plus MW of storage capability, of the three,330 MW below contract, to return on-line in 2022 and 2023.
The Vistra Moss Touchdown Battery Power Storage Facility makes use of LG Power Resolution batteries and is situated adjoining to the Tesla Megapack Elkhorn Battery storage system.
Each Part I and II of the Vistra storage system at Moss Touchdown have been shut down since September 2021 and February 2022 respectively. The reason for each incidents was reportedly overheating batteries that activated the sprinkler techniques. The corporate is additional investigating and taking motion to mitigate the opportunity of related future occasions. There have been no accidents or fatalities in both incident.
Vistra Power is getting ready to broaden its Moss Touchdown battery power storage facility additional with the 350 MW part III, as settlement contracts with PG&E have been met, and pending approval of the agreements by the California Public Utilities Fee.