CU held a ribbon cutting Wednesday at the site of the five-megawatt, large-scale battery project near the Blackman Water Treatment Plant.
Warren Brooks, CU’s vice-president of electric operations, said the batteries will charge at night when demand is low, and on extremely hot and cold days when demand is high, they’ll discharge that energy back into the system.
He said the new system diversifies CU’s resources even further, and that helps them offer better service to customers.
"We continue to see more variable energy resources brought into the system. So, when it's things like wind and solar, we can't control — basically, we can't control the fuel source, meaning we have no control if clouds come in or if the wind drops off," said Brooks. "So, having things like batteries that are able to quickly respond to that is what keeps the system stable and keeps everyone in service."
The cost of the new battery storage system was approximately $12 million, according to Brooks, and the batteries are expected to last for around two decades. The system will be able to power around 5,000 homes. A second, larger battery energy storage system will be finished at the end of the year at CU’s James River site. That one will be 31 megawatts and will be able to power around 30,000 homes.
CU partnered with Eos Energy Enterprises to install the non-flammable, fully recyclable zinc batteries.
The utility company is also installing three new natural gas combustion turbines at the McCartney Generating Station in northeast Springfield. Altogether, the projects will add nearly 186 megawatts of new generation capacity.
