Johnson Controls has taken a step into distributed energy storage, installing a lithium-ion battery storage system in one of the world’s largest commercial buildings.
Chicago’s 4.2 million square foot Merchandise Mart, which was owned for half a century by the Kennedy family, now has one of Johnson’s smaller in-building storage systems, the L1000, which provides up to 85 kWh of energy storage.
The company is working to install its larger 20-ft modular L2000 system, which provides 500 kWh, at a US military base in Puerto Rico, where some of the power is solar sourced.
Johnson Controls claims the smaller system can replace enough expensive power grid energy with its battery storage to make energy savings of 35%.
JCI has managed to win a ‘Super ESPC’ (Energy Savings Performance Contract) from the US Government, which pre-qualifies the company to work on federal sites
So although Johnson may be taking its first steps into distributed energy storage systems, with predictions by Navigant Research that distributed storage capacity could exceed 12 GW hours, they are almost certainly not going to be its last.
