A123 Energy Solutions has announced the first commissioning of its Long Duration (LD) Grid Storage Solution in Hawaii for the Maui Electric Company (MECO). The energy storage installation can provide 1MW for up to one hour, and will perform services to increase electric grid operational efficiency, stability, and power quality. Installed at an existing MECO substation, the 1MWh energy storage system was packaged in a 20-foot container and shipped to the site fully assembled and tested. For this storage project, A123 Energy Solutions provided a turnkey solution to MECO, performing the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and testing. A key component of the Maui Smart Grid Project, the battery will provide peak-load shifting, voltage regulation, reactive power support and wind curtailment relief.
“This installation is the second site we’ve commissioned on the island of Maui in the past five months,” said Bud Collins, president of A123 Energy Solutions. “But while the 11MW commissioned in December of last year was comprised of our widely deployed High Rate systems, this is the first time we’ve commissioned the Long Duration product. We’re very happy with how smoothly the installation went. The entire process took about five weeks from start of construction up to the completion of commissioning.”
At the core of this new system is the Long Duration Grid Battery System (GBS-LD) with energy storage configurations that range from as little as 100kW to large multi-megawatt arrays. The GBS-LD can be packaged in a variety of different enclosures, ranging from standardized 20-foot, 40-foot, and 53-foot long containers to custom enclosures, and the systems are also available for installations in pre-existing buildings or other locations. Utilizing A123 Systems Nanophosphate prismatic cell technology, a single 53-foot GBS-LD can deliver 4MW of energy for a full hour, and is designed for applications like peaking, shifting, capacity firming, or transmission and distribution (T&D) support. The GBS-LD product line complements A123 Energy Solutions’ widely-deployed GBS-HR (High Rate) grid energy storage product which is used for high power applications in the 15-minute timeframe including frequency response, frequency regulation, and renewable ramp management.
