California muni IID completes first US demonstration of black start battery capability
Black start capability — the restarting of a conventional generating plant without use of external transmission — has long been listed as a theoretical benefit of battery storage, but demonstrations have been slow to come.
This functionality “hasn’t been deployed before,” said Mir Ziyad Ali, senior systems engineer at ZGlobal, one of IID’s partners on the project.
That point, Energy Storage News notes, is debatable. In January, the outlet reported a 5 MW battery storage facility in Germany would be the first to utilize the capability.
Either way, the IID’s partners on the project hailed the demonstration as a major achievement in enhancing grid resiliency.
“This success is an essential next step in increasing the resiliency of IID’s grid to recover from power outages to ensure district customers have the electricity they require every day,” Mirko Molinari, general manager of digital grid, at GE Energy Connections, said in a statement.
