Southern California Edison said it will add 535 MW/2,150 MWh of battery energy storage at three of its substations.
The move is in response to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emergency proclamation to accelerate the rapid deployment of new clean energy and storage projects for summer 2021 and 2022. The utility, known as SCE, will use land at its existing substations to develop, permit, and interconnect the battery storage resources. The company contracted Ameresco to install the battery energy storage systems that are expected to be online next August.
The additional storage capacity adds to long-term capacity contracts completed last year, which include 1,355 MW of utility-scale battery storage and 5 MW of demand response that uses energy from customer-owned energy storage. With the new capacity SCE’s total amount of installed and procured storage capacity will be about 2,810 MW.
The latest battery storage additions are intended to help SCE meet demand in the San Joaquin Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, and nearby communities as well as the greater Long Beach area, including the Port of Long Beach.
SCE estimated the state needs to add 30 GW of utility-scale storage to the grid and 10 GW of storage from distributed energy resources to meet the state’s clean energy and carbon neutrality goals.
