Commercial-scale intelligent energy storage company Stem is developing an aggregated fleet of customer-sited energy storage in Texas. The company is to partner with Austin Energy which will offer its commercial customer’s energy storage options to help Stem reduce energy costs while simultaneously providing a reliable energy storage resource for the Austin Energy grid. The project is one phase of a larger Austin Energy grant from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar Photovoltaics (SHINES) programme. The programme’s goal is to reduce the cost of electricity from combined solar and storage projects to below $0.14/kWh.
It is the eighth utility contract for Stem, giving the company an opportunity to prove how its innovative aggregated platform can integrate solar and energy storage to increase grid performance and reliability and enable higher penetrations of solar PV. Austin Energy is using the Stem partnership to test new customer offerings that result in sustainable aggregation models.
REM talked to Stem CEO John Carrington to find out more.
Can you tell me more about the two companies involved in this partnership?
Stem is headquartered in Millbrae, California and was founded in 2009, with projects in operation since 2012, and backed by the industry’s largest project finance pool at $350 million. Our mission is to build and operate the largest digitally-connected energy storage network for our customers. Our world-class analytics optimise the value of customer’s energy assets and facilitate their participation in energy markets, yielding economic and societal benefits while decarbonising the grid. Stem is funded by a consortium of leading investors including Angeleno Group, Iberdrola (Inversiones Financieras Perseo), GE Ventures, Constellation Technology Ventures, Total Energy Ventures, Mitsui & Co. LTD., RWE Supply & Trading, and Mithril Capital Management.
Austin Energy serves more than 450,000 customer accounts and more than 1 million residents in Greater Austin. The utility’s mission — to safely deliver clean, affordable and reliable energy along with excellent customer service — has guided Austin Energy in powering the community and supporting the region’s growth since 1895.
Austin Energy has established a goal of 55 percent renewable resources by 2025. To do this cost effectively for its ratepayers, Austin Energy is adding energy storage to increase grid resiliency and manage the variability/impact on their distribution grid associated with high penetration of renewables. Stem will help Austin Energy integrate Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) into their distribution grid and solve grid problems (e.g., ramping, targeted load reduction) with behind-the-meter resources. The deployment provides Austin Energy with a fast-responding and dispatchable resource in a portion of their grid with high PV penetration. The aggregated resource may also help Austin Energy integrate with and reduce costs associated with ERCOT participation. The SHINES project is the first step toward achieving Austin’s renewable and energy storage targets, with broader deployment to follow.
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