PG&E seeks nod to add 423 MW of battery storage in California

Author: Portland General Electric. License: Creative Commons, Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

US utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is seeking regulatory consent to add 423 MW of energy storage capacity to enhance the reliability of California’s electric system.

The five projects were selected in a competitive round that the US utility held in February so as to address potential grid reliability issues that were previously identified by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The battery storage will facilitate the integration of more renewable energy capacity, PG&E said on Tuesday. The permission has to be issued by CPUC.

The following table contains more details on the five selected projects. All of them will feature lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) and will be brought online by August 2021.

Project name	Developer	Location	Contracted capacity (MW)	Term of contract (years)	Co-location technology
Diablo Energy Storage	Diablo Energy Storage LLC	Contra Costa County	150	15	No
Vistra Energy MOSS100 Energy Storage	Dynegy Marketing and Trade LLC	Moss Landing, Monterey County	100	10	No
Gateway Energy Storage	Gateway Energy Storage LLC	San Diego	50	15	No
Blythe Energy Storage 110	NextEra Energy Resources Development LLC	Blythe, Riverside County	63	15	Solar PV
Coso Battery Storage	Coso Battery Storage LLC	Little Lake, Inyo County	60	15	Geothermal

PG&E was authorised to procure at least 716.9 MW of system reliability resources that will be commissioned between August 1, 2021 and August 1, 2023. The overall capacity will be reached through a second competitive solicitation due to be issued this summer for facilities going online within the period from August 1, 2022 to August 1, 2023.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!