The not-for-profit public power utility Salt River Project (SRP) has partnered with ESS, a manufacturer of iron flow long duration energy storage systems, to build Project New Horizon, a 5-megawatt (MW), 50 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery system.
The pilot project, which will be installed at SRP’s Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center in Florence, Arizona, is the result of a request for proposal (RFP) issued by SRP in 2024 for LDES pilots.
Once operational, the system will be connected to the grid serving the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, and ESS will sell capacity to SRP under a ten-year energy storage agreement.
The ESS Iron Flow Battery (IFB) project will be part of SRP’s effort to assess emerging, non-lithium ion LDES technologies while supporting its reliability and sustainability goals. The system will use ESS’ Energy Base technology and will store enough energy to power 1,125 average-sized homes for 10 hours.
SRP wants to at least double the number of generating resources on its power system over the next decade. It currently has nearly 1,300 MW of energy storage across eight facilities and 200 MW of pumped hydro storage.
“SRP once again demonstrates its leadership with its commitment to non-lithium, long duration energy storage,” said Kelly Goodman, Interim Chief Executive Officer of ESS, in a statement. “This project is a significant validation in both the LDES industry and ESS as a technology provider. We are thrilled to be working with SRP to deliver more hours of clean energy to its customers.”
Currently, the Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center includes a 99 MW flexible natural gas facility, with a 55 MW utility-scale solar project under construction on-site.
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