January 12, 2023: Power Vault Holdings is working with US utility Pacific Fuel and Electrical (PG&E) on plans to construct a battery and ‘inexperienced hydrogen’ long-term vitality storage system (BH-ESS) with essentially the most small capability of 293MWh , the companions introduced on January 5.
The system capability could be expanded to 700MWh.
The transfer comes after Power Vault chairman and CEO Robert Piconi (pictured) mentioned in a third-quarter earnings replace on November 14 that the introduction of inexperienced hydrogen into its know-how portfolio “additional confirms in our technical range in our vitality administration software program platform and out there. for hybrid short- and long-term built-in programs”.
Piconi mentioned the corporate is positioning itself as the one vitality storage firm that gives “a {hardware} agnostic portfolio of each short- and long-term storage options, bringing new gravity, inexperienced hydrogen and hybrid options in the marketplace for the primary time”.
The system for PG&E, if given the go-ahead by the California Public Utilities Fee, will probably be owned, operated and maintained by Power Vault on a one-acre web site. It’s the first venture of its type and the most important utility-scale inexperienced hydrogen venture within the US, the corporate mentioned.
The BH-ESS features a hydrogen gas cell powered by electrolytic hydrogen obtained from renewable vitality sources. Inexperienced hydrogen, additionally referred to as renewable hydrogen, is produced by electrolysis of water. The method is totally powered by renewable vitality.
The system will change the cellular diesel mills that PG&E sometimes makes use of throughout wider grid outages to keep up the microgrid that serves the downtown and surrounding space of the Northern California Metropolis of Calistoga.
Building will start within the fourth quarter of 2023 with industrial operation on the finish of the second quarter of 2024.
Regional P&G VP Ron Richardson mentioned: “This breakthrough collaboration supplies a template for future, renewable community-scale microgrids that efficiently combine third-party distributed vitality assets, that are anticipated to price prospects under the benchmark which is ready by state regulators primarily based on the choice. use of cellular diesel mills.”
Final Might, Power Vault mentioned it had damaged floor on China’s first gravity-based vitality storage system.
