Hawaii’s adoption of energy storage continues apace with Tesla set to supply a 52MWh lithium-ion battery storage system for a renewable energy project.
The US firm is to supply the batteries for a ‘first of its kind’ project on Hawaii’s northernmost island for Kaua’i Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC).
Tesla was chosen by Solarcity to supply the batteries for the project, which will team an energy storage system with a solar array to provide ‘dispatchable solar energy’.
This means the ESS will feed 13MW of electricity to the grid to meet power demand between 5pm and 10pm.
The 20-year project was announced last year, with Solarcity pocketing 14.5 cents per KWh.
The array and battery storage facility will be built on 50 acres of land adjacent to KIUC’s Kapaia power station.
The project has received most of its required state and county approvals and is now awaiting approval by the Hawai’i Public Utilities Commission.
KIUC and SolarCity hope to begin construction work by April with a goal of being in commercial operation by the end of 2016.
Earlier this month BBB reported how a decision by Hawaii’s Public Utilities Commission could open the doors for the adoption of residential ESSs.
The Public Utilities Commission closed the island’s net-energy metering system (NEM) whereby residents sold excess renewable energy to the utility at retail rates.
Under the new system, customers rates were slashed from 26 cents to 15 cents a kilowatt-hour, perhaps paving the way for greater financial gain in storing renewable energy rather than selling it to utilities.
At the beginning of last year energy storage developer Aquion Energy provided a 1MWh battery as part of a private off-grid solar PV microgrid at the Kona coast on the Island of Hawaii.
In 2014 French battery supplier Saft is to supply a lithium-ion battery energy storage system (ESS) to a 12MW PV plant on Kauai Island, Hawaii, US.
In 2013 Xtreme Power expanded its lithium-ion battery energy storage systems on the Hawaiian island of Kauai with the addition of 2MW of power installed on at 12MW.
