Energy Vault and PG&E develop grid-supportive green hydrogen LDES
To coordinate grid resilience and reliability during power outages, Energy Vault and PG&E are partnering up to develop a utility-scale battery plus green hydrogen long duration energy storage system (LDES).
Energy Vault, developer of grid-scale energy storage solutions, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation, announced the partnership to deploy and operate the energy storage system (BH-ESS), with a minimum of 293MWh of dispatchable carbon-free energy.
The BH-ESS is designed to power downtown and the surrounding area of the Northern California City of Calistoga for a minimum of 48 hours during planned outages and potential public safety power shutoffs, which is when the powerlines serving the surrounding area must be turned off for safety due to high wildfire risk.
Construction is anticipated to begin in the fourth quarter of 2023 with commercial operation expected by the end of second quarter of 2024. Upon completion, this project is expected to be the first-of-its-kind and the largest utility-scale green hydrogen project in the United States.
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The energy storage system will be owned, operated and maintained by Energy Vault while providing dispatchable power under a long-term tolling agreement with PG&E. The system’s capacity may be expanded to 700MWh, which would allow it to operate for longer without refueling, enabling further flexibility for PG&E and the City of Calistoga.
Energy Vault’s BH-ESS will replace the typical, mobile diesel generators used to energise PG&E’s Calistoga microgrid during broader grid outages.
“PG&E selected Energy Vault’s innovative hybrid architecture and design to create a cost-effective, community-scale, fully carbon-free microgrid that can store and dispatch on-demand renewable energy,” said Ron Richardson, regional vice president, North Bay and North Coast, PG&E.
“This breakthrough collaboration between PG&E and Energy Vault provides a template for future, renewable community-scale microgrids that successfully integrate third-party distributed energy resources, which is expected to cost customers less than the benchmark set by state regulators based on the alternative use of mobile diesel generators.”
Robert Piconi, chairman and chief executive officer at Energy Vault said on the project: “We are setting a new benchmark for what can be achieved with an innovative design that integrates the most advanced energy storage mediums in order to deliver a fully renewable green hydrogen battery energy storage system.
PG&E submitted the project contract for review and approval to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on December 30, 2022, with a request for the issuance of a final resolution approving the project by May 15, 2023.
