SCE awaits third energy storage unit approval

Southern California Edison (SCE) is awaiting approval from the California PUC for the third unit within its 27 MW of lithium-ion storage plans. The utility filed in late December with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a Generator Interconnection Agreement with the third of the three, the PPA Grand Johanna LLC for a 2 MW/8MWh storage project called Grand Johanna.

January 3, 2017 Charles W. Thurston

The other two storage projects are a 5 MW unit from Western Grid Development LLC, and a 20 MW/80MWh unit from AltaGas Pomona Energy Storage Inc. The three are designed to compensate for the closure of the Aliso Canyon natural gas facility, which failed in January 2016. The utility had hoped to have all three on line by the end of 2016.

The Western Grid project, called Santa Paula 1, is being connected with a three-year PPA, with follow-on production committed to another taker. The AltaGas project, called Pomona Battery Storage 1, is connecting with a 10-year PPA, at an estimated cost of $45 million. Costs have not been disclosed for the other two storage units.

The Grand Johanna project will be located at Irvine, California, within the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) balancing authority area. The project will interconnect to the 12-kV distribution system owned by SCE.

PPA Grand Johanna is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Powin Energy, a Nevada corporation that designs and manufactures energy storage systems. The Johanna project is the first Powin Energy-owned storage project in the United States.

Powin Energy was formed through an October 2016 merger, and is a designer and developer of scalable battery energy storage solutions. The company has patented its Battery Pack Operating System (bp-OS), for utility, microgrid and EV fast-charging applications.

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