Call it one of the stranger battery storage systems out there. California municipalities are reportedly placing orders for as much as 1 MW of ice storage batteries from firm Ice Energy.
The Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA), an organization of the municipal utilities of 10 cities and one irrigation district is placing the order with the systems to be installed at consumer’s homes in a pilot program.
The battery storage market is booming – literally growing by several hundred percent annually over the last few years – in large part because traditional utilities are excited about the opportunity to avoid costly investment in new peaker plants. Using home battery storage systems enables these firms to defer that investment.
The ice battery systems are slated to be installed in about 100 homes with each 9.6kW system replacing the outdoor condensing units of homeowners’ air conditioning systems. Ice Energy’ batteries in off-peak (low energy cost) periods use copper coils filled with cold refrigerant to create ice from the homeowner’s regular tap water.
Once the ice is created, the residential Ice Bear 20 can cool a home continuously for four hours, and the company says that can save 95% of associated electricity costs compared with traditional HVAC units. The firm also has a large Ice Bear 30 for commercial customer. The system is particularly beneficial in states with large time of use differences in electricity pricing such as northeastern states like Connecticut and west coast states like California.
Utilities like those in the California alliance benefit from reduced peak load demand thus avoiding the cost of buying peak wholesale power or (eventually) building new peaker plants.
Ice Energy is not the only firm in the market for ice batteries though. Competitor Viking Cold reported last year that a California utility was interest its products to help counter the challenge the “duck curve” of solar energy energy supply and demand.
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