Dive Brief:
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Southern Company and its Gulf Power subsidiary have begun work on a 250 kW, 1 MWh energy storage pilot project in Pensacola, Fla.
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The McCrary Battery Energy Storage project will test a Tesla Powerpack lithium-ion industrial energy storage system over two years to evaluate how the system can help commercial and industrial customers store and use energy on demand, while improving resiliency saving energy costs.
- Southern says the project could accelerate its development of battery storage technology across its system. The company has been ramping up its investment in grid-edge solutions in recent months.
Dive Insight:
Southern Co. has been active lately in pursuing grid edge solutions. Late last month, Southern formed a strategic alliance with Advanced Microgrid Solutions for the joint development of behind-the-meter distributed energy resources across the United States.
And last October, Southern formed a partnership with Bloom Energy to secure 50 MW of fuel cells under long-term power purchase agreements with the aim of combining the fuel cells with battery storage to create a new offering for customers.
Those alliances build on the acquisition of Powersecure, a distributed energy and microgrid provider, in February 2016. The Bloom fuel cells will be offered to customers through the DER subsidiary.
Now, Southern is turning to is regulated utilities, testing Tesla battery packs with the aim of eventually rolling them out to C&I customers.
“At Southern Company, we are constantly broadening our industry-leading expertise to harness new technologies that can deliver clean, safe, reliable, affordable energy to customers,” Kimberly Greene, Southern executive vice president and COO, said in a statement.