Homer Electric Association reports that the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) arrived at their Soldotna Generation and Substation Facility. 37 modular batteries were delivered to the facility, all of them are to be installed onsite by the end of July.
Larry Jorgensen, Director of Power, Fuels & Dispatch for Homer Electric Association told KSRM:
“The biggest thing that we’re trying to do is to further the goals of the board set forth for us. One of the goals being to incorporate a larger amount of renewable energy and also to run our system more efficiently. Part of running the system efficiently is we are required by our reliability standards to maintain certain reserves on the system. There’s two main types of reserves that we have to have. One is called spinning reserve. The second reserve that we have to maintain is regulating reserve.”
Jorgensen also says:
“The BESS will have the ability to do that regulation and to also provide the spinning reserves on an immediate basis and I no longer have to take a natural gas fired unit and back it off to where it runs less efficiently in order to have those spinning reserves and regulating reserves available. The BESS being able to regulate much faster and much better than a combustion turbine can and to have all those spinning reserves immediately available. The BESS provides that and helps our system run more efficiently as well as allows us to regulate non dispatchable resources like solar and wind.”
BESS has to go through a commissioning process, which is broken into several phases. The cold commissioning will make sure that the units have all arrived in good, functional condition and the issues found have to be remedied before they can move on. Then, the electrical testing is done to proof the system. The process is expected to be completed by late September – beginning of October in hopes to have the entire system commercial by the end of October – beginning of November.
For more information on the project, click here.