Plus Power’s 185 MW/565 MWh battery storage project, consisting of 158 Tesla Megapack 2 XL lithium iron phosphate batteries across eight acres of industrial land near Honolulu, is now providing load shifting and fast-frequency response services to Hawaiian Electric.

Customer-sited solar power has become so abundant in the region that Hawaiian Electric must regularly ‘curtail’ or turn off large volumes of existing utility-scale solar and wind to keep the electric system in balance.

The utility estimates that in its first five years of operation, the KES battery plant will allow it to reduce curtailment of renewable energy by 69% and integrate 10% more new utility-scale renewables than previous models allowed, while providing for the continued rapid growth of individually-owned renewables such as rooftop solar.  

Brandon Keefe, Executive Chairman, Plus Power, comments: ‘It’s the first time a battery has been used by a major utility to balance the grid: providing fast frequency response, synthetic inertia, and black start. This project is a postcard from the future – batteries will soon be providing these services, at scale, on the mainland.’  

US battery storage capacity expected to nearly double in 2024

In other news, a study by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has found that battery storage capacity in the US could increase by 89% by the end of 2024 if developers bring all storage systems they have planned online.

Developers currently plan to expand battery capacity to more than 30 GW by the end of 2024, a capacity that would exceed those of petroleum liquids, geothermal, wood and wood waste, or landfill gas.

California has the most installed battery storage capacity of any state, with 7.3 GW, followed by Texas with 3.2 GW. The remaining states have a total of around of 3.5 GW of installed capacity.

Planned and currently operational US utility-scale battery capacity totalled around 16 GW at the end of 2023. Developers plan to add another 15 GW in 2024 and around 9 GW in 2025, the study notes.

US cities will fall short of sustainable energy goals  

Meanwhile, a new report says that 200 US communities will fail to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050, despite pledges to do so.  

The study, published in the Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability journal, shows that by 2050, gas will firmly remain the primary source of energy in the US given that the current infrastructure plans for implementing renewable energy cannot provide sufficient energy output.

Recent projections suggest that renewable energy generation will need to triple to meet even a 45% share of energy production. The results indicate that in many instances renewable energy is used as an additional source to meet growing energy needs, instead of a transitional tool away from fossil fuels.  

The study provides an insight into the energy consumption on a city level based on an ‘energyshed’ framework – a holistic framework covering a geographic area that contains the land, infrastructure, people, profits and environmental impacts, and how these elements impact energy consumption.  

Based on this method, the researchers examined a cross-section of US cities including Boston, Washington DC, Salt Lake City, Columbia and San Diego that have committed to adopting fully renewable energy sources by 2050, finding that these cities are predicted to meet just 10% of their targets in the next 30 years.  

Dr Kayla Garrett, author, says: ‘The energyshed method shows that while the need for this transition is clear, the best pathways to achieve it are greatly debated. Many areas are faced with conflicting sustainability goals such as changes to infrastructure, energy storage, land and resource use, biodiversity, economic development and more. This can lead to “analysis paralysis” which is one of the major blockers for decisive action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.’