It’s the stuff of an action-hero movie: An accident threatens an unsuspecting metropolis. Electricity supplies face disruptions and millions are at risk of being without electricity as blackouts roll across the city. Faced with the prospect of escalating chaos, officials gather on the steps of government buildings and implore, “Who can help us?”
But let’s leave that cliffhanger for a moment, knowing that reality was not quite so—shall we say—Hollywood.
Even so, this movie-quality crisis is based in fact and has energy storage as its action hero. The increasingly mainstream zero-emission technology helped ease a real-life crisis that had all the makings of a major catastrophe.
Official records say that on 23 October 2015, a significant natural gas leak in well SS25 was detected at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles. Repeated attempts by Southern California Gas Co., the owner, to “kill”—plug up—the well and stop the leak failed.
SoCalGas relies on Aliso Canyon to provide gas for core customers—homes and small businesses—as well as non-core customers, including hospitals, local governments, oil refineries, and 17 natural gas-fired power plants with a combined generating capacity of nearly 10,000 megawatts.
As part of a multi-part response to the crisis, the California Public Utilities Commission in May 2016 fast-tracked approval of 104.5 MW of battery-based energy storage systems within the service areas of Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SCD&E).
Those utilities, along with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power—the nation’s largest municipal utility—provide gas and electric service to most of southern California. By the end of February 2017, seven of eight fast-tracked Aliso Canyon–related energy storage projects were online, helping the region’s energy grid regain stability.
The significance of the Aliso Canyon energy storage deployment is “hard to overstate,” says Alex Morris, director of policy and regulatory affairs for the California Energy Storage Alliance, an advocacy group.
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