Project finance is purely based on market consideration. “This sizable 70 MW project demonstrates the growing value being placed on energy storage; there are no government programs or regulations in place that incentivised this build,” said Risto Paldanius, Wärtsilä’s business development director for Energy Storage & Optimisation.
Playing the arbitrage
The GEMS management system will facilitate ‘energy arbitrage’ with the system’s battery storage capabilities. This allows the customer to purchase electricity from the market when prices are low, and sell stored energy back into the market when short-term costs spike.
Built on behalf on an unnamed utility customer, the will be Wärtsilä’s largest energy storage deployment tied to a renewable resource in the western United States. This adds to Wärtsilä’s portfolio of more than 20 operating energy storage projects in North America, including two grid-scale 9.9 MW energy storage systems in Roscoe, Texas.
Focus on safety
The new energy storage system in CAISO, based on lithium iron phosphate batteries, will be paired with Wärtsilä GEMS platform to increase deployment and dispatch of the customers wind and solar power assets. GEMS will increase revenue and ROI by maximising battery performance and longevity and enabling additional value streams.
“For this customer, safety starts with a lithium iron phosphate battery option, which has several fundamental safety features such as a lower thermal runaway temperature and very low temperature rise rate. Temperature, smoke and fire detection, as well as suppression systems, are all designed for early detection and prevention of any safety related incidents,” Paldanius explained.