Over the next two years, the title of “largest active battery storage project” is one that will be held by quite a few projects, though none for long. Today, the holder of that title is LS Power’s 250-MW Gateway project, located in the East Otay Mesa community in San Diego County, California.
While still the largest operational storage project in the world, Gateway still hasn’t achieved its maximum capacity. It currently sits at 230 MW of operations capacity, with the last 20 MW set to come by the end of the month.
Alongside a press release touting the project’s completion, LS Power also released a really cool time-lapse video of Gateway’s construction.
As for the construction shown above, it was handled by McCarthy Building Companies, while NEC built the system with LG Chem batteries and SMA inverters, according to LS Power VP of Energy Storage, Cody Hill on twitter.
NEC built the system with LG Chem batteries and SMA inverter. McCarthy did the construction.
I have nothing but good things to say about these partners and suppliers.
— Cody Hill (@cody_a_hill) August 19, 2020
Though LS Power has not yet shared that project’s MWh capacity, it will almost certainly be between 1 GWh and 1.5 GWh once completed, as it’s rare to see large-scale storage outside of the four-to-six-hour duration range.
Following the completion of the Gateway project, LS Power will be keeping the large-scale storage train rolling in the months and years to come. The company currently has in its pipeline the 200 MW Diablo Energy Storage facility in Pittsburg, California, the 125-MW LeConte Energy Storage facility in Calexico, California and the massive 316-MW Ravenswood Energy Storage project being developed in Queens, New York.
All of these facilities will come out near the top of the global leaderboard for largest energy storage projects upon their completion. For some reference as to how impressive, LS Power’s pipeline is, let’s take one last look at the former list of largest completed projects in the world, now invalidated by Gateway’s completion.
2020 has proven to be a breakthrough year for large-scale energy storage. Last week, Vistra Energy had a permit to expand an energy storage system under construction at its natural gas-fired Moss Landing generation station in Monterey County, California to 1,500 MW/6,000 MWh approved, which will soon become the largest battery installation in the world, by far.
Nearby and also in Moss Landing, Tesla is building a 182.5 MW and 730 MWh battery comprised of 256 Tesla Megapack battery, which will be fully complete in Q2 2021. There is also the upcoming 409-MW Florida Power and Light Manatee project, set to be the largest battery installation on the East Coast.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Hi Tim, In the comparison table above what does it mean “duration” for those large-scale Energy storage projects? Thks indeed.
Hello Pasquale. Duration here refers to the amount of time storage can discharge at its power capacity before depleting its energy capacity. Hope this helps!