Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E, San Francisco, California, U.S.) has successfully completed a technology demonstration project to explore the performance of battery storage systems participating in California’s electricity markets.
The energy storage project, funded by California’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program, began in 2014 and utilized PG&E’s 2 megawatt (MW) Vaca-Dixon and 4 MW Yerba Buena battery storage systems to provide energy and ancillary services in California Independent System Operator (CAISO) markets.
The Vaca-Dixon system is the first battery storage resource in California to participate in the market. The Yerba Buena system is the first battery storage resource to both participate in the market and serve a reliability function supporting PG&E’s distribution system in the event of a disturbance or outage.
“We see great potential for energy storage systems to benefit Californians. Through this demonstration PG&E has addressed multiple barriers and gained incredible operational experience with battery storage,” said Kevin Dasso, vice president, Electric Asset Management, PG&E.
In 2017, PG&E will utilize the Yerba Buena battery, located in the San Jose foothills, for another EPIC technology demonstration involving the coordination of 3rd-party distributed energy resources (DERs) – such as residential and commercial solar PV – using smart inverters and battery storage controlled through a distributed energy resource management system (DERMS).
A report can be downloaded from PG&E’s EPIC Program website: www.pge.com/
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