Japan’s multinational technology firm NEC Corporation has signed a deal for a smart energy project in Chile. Through its subsidiaries NEC Chile and NEC Energy Solutions (NEC ES), it will supply a 2MW/2MWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) to ENGIE Energía Chile (EECL), a Santiago-based utility company.
NEC Chile’s first smart energy project will be installed in the second half of 2017 in the city of Arica, in north Chile.
This is NEC ES’s third project in Chile since 2009. The BESS will be connected to an existing substation and offer ancillary services such as spinning reserve and time shifting, helping the integration of PV and wind projects.
NEC Chile will provide a GSS grid storage solution including containerized lithium-ion batteries, power conversion system, and NEC ES proprietary AEROS controls system, as well as service and maintenance packages.
Axel Leveque, general manager of EECL, said the project would allow the group to focus on renewable energy. He also said they chose NEC as it is “one of the most experienced companies in the world”.
Last year, NEC ES supplied a 2MW/ 3.9MWh GSS grid energy storage solution for the Sterling Municipal Light Department of Sterling, Massachusetts, US. At the time, the NEC ES’s BESS was the first utility-scale project in Massachusetts.