As one of California’s load-serving electric entities, SCE won bids to develop several solar-plus-storage projects, located at the same point of interconnection. “These new emissions-free projects will help us ensure the reliability of the grid for our customers and integrate an ever-increasing amount of clean renewable energy over the next decade,” said William Walsh, SCE vice president of energy procurement and management.
Regulator requests available backup capacity
To mitigate the risk of intermittency issues from rising renewable energy deployment, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) granted permission to extend the lifetime of several gas peakers. The regulator also requested that 3,300 MW of “system-level resource adequacy capacity” - notably energy storage - needs to start operating incrementally.
At least half of that capacity, including the seven new power storage units, needs to be built and commissioned by the beginning of August 2021, with the full capacity due operational by August 2023. To that end, the energy regulator has awarded several projects, with a contract length ranging from 10 to 20 years.
Tender for solar-plus-storage projects
The largest energy storage project, awarded through the CPUC tender, is the 230 MW/920 MWh McCoy project connected to NextEra’s 250 MW solar farm, followed by Blythe 2 and 3 projects (both 115 MW/460 MWh), under development by NextEra Energy.
Southern Power was awarded two energy storage projects, both coupled with solar PV installations owned by Canadian’s Solar Recurrent Energy. These projects are the 88 MW/352 MWh Garland Project and the 72 MW/288 MWh Tranquility Project.
The smaller 50 MW/200 MWh Sanborn project went to TerraGen, while a development contract for the stand-alone 100 MW/400 MWh storage project was won by LSPower.
All of the energy storage projects are situated across Southern California’s Kern, Fresno, Riverside and San Diego counties, set to enhance the energy supply security of approximately 15 million people.