A large-scale energy storage project to be built in Texas will take advantage of the system’s flexibility to deliver multiple services, as opportunities grow in the state’s Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market.
Independent power producer (IPP) GlidePath Power has contracted Oregon-headquartered Powin Energy to construct a 10MW / 10MWh energy storage system (ESS) utilising lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery technology at an as-yet unspecified location in the ERCOT service area.
A GlidePath representative told Energy-Storage.news that the project “has the potential to be co-located” with renewable energy facilities, in a state where there is a large installed capacity of wind energy and a growing interest in solar. The company was tight-lipped on revealing which applications the system will serve but instead issued a general statement on various opportunities within ERCOT.
“ERCOT is a highly competitive market with room for multiple technologies to participate in providing energy, ancillary service and reliability functions,” the GlidePath spokesman said.
“GlidePath is excited to enter this market with an energy storage system that will demonstrate great value to ERCOT consumers in a market projecting historically low planning reserve margins.”
Going forward, demand for electricity is rising rapidly in Texas, while GlidePath quoted figures to Energy-Storage.news from ERCOT’s preliminary assessment for total resource capacity in the 2019 summer season that show a planning reserve margin of just 7.4% with “total resource capacity being extremely narrow”, the spokesman said.
As well as this shortfall in planned reserve capacity which ESS could help bridge, ERCOT is seeking ways to add dispatchable energy storage markets, in common with other RTOs and ISOs around America. The ERCOT grid is not interconnected with the rest of the US’ electricity networks and does not fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 841, instructing network operators to incorporate energy storage into wholesale markets.
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