A 250MW/1,000MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Arizona will soon break ground, utility SRP and developer Plus Power said.Construction on the Sierra Estrella Energy Storage project will start on 12 April, in a week’s time, they said in a media statement yesterday (5 April). It will serve SRP customers during times of peak demand on the grid and will help the utility integrate more renewable generation into the mix.
SRP announced the Sierra project in October 2022 and the four-hour lithium-ion BESS is expected to come online in summer of 2024. It is one of two large-scale projects the utility has contracted for which will help it achieve a doubling of its 400MW BESS capacity target by summer 2024, along with the 90MW/360MWh Superstition project, also from Plus Power.
Plus Power will design, build, and operate the Sierra project with batteries “assembled in the US”.
Plus Power used recently-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank to finance its 565MWh Kapolei project in Hawaii and declined to comment when asked by Energy-Storage.news what the implications of its demise were for that project.
While California and Texas remain the largest energy storage markets in the US by some distance, several large-scale projects in Arizona mean it’s quickly becoming noteworthy to those in the industry. Recent projects Energy-Storage.news has reported on include an 860MWh project system integrator Powin is deploying and a co-located 600MWh one being developed by renewable energy firm BrightNight.
On the upstream side, Arizona is also the site for two lithium-ion gigafactories being built by US firms Kore Power and American Battery Factory, both of whom firmed up their site selections last year. Lithium-ion battery recycling firm Li-Cycle has also opened a ‘spoke’ facility in Arizona to collect battery material to send to its recycling plant which will open in New York.
