IID joins energy deal
Moving ahead with its efforts to increase reliability and fulfilling its renewable energy portfolio, the Imperial Irrigation District, Coachella Energy Storage Partners and General Electric signed a $38 million deal to do just that.
The project consists of the construction of a new facility with a 30-megawatt battery energy storage system that will aid grid flexibility and help provide more reliable energy.
The facility will be located near IID’s El Centro Generation Station off Villa Road.
“We had a major issue with solar integration,” said IID Superintendent of Alternative Energy Bruce Townsend. “We made some studies at IID and we thought the batteries were the best way to mitigate the issues with solar integration and conserve the integrity and reliability of our system.”
The three areas in which this project is expected to help are area control, solar integration and spinning reserve.
Townsend said that although consumers might not notice the reliability of some renewable energy sources, the new system will use power from the batteries to help fill those gaps when more power is needed and also has the ability to preserve it when more power than what is needed is being generated.
“It will maintain a nice flow of electricity for all of our customers,” Townsend said.
The New facility will have a capacity of 30 megawatts and can generate 20 megawatt-hours.
