NEC to Install More than 20MW of Municipal Energy Storage Projects in New England
Programs save ratepayer’s money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide energy resiliency
WESTBOROUGH, Mass.: NEC Energy Solutions (NEC ES), today announced six additional energy storage projects of more than 20 MW at municipal power plants throughout New England including Madison, Maine, and Ashburnham, Templeton, Wakefield, Middleton and Taunton, Massachusetts. The new projects follow the model of the Sterling Municipal Light Department installed two years ago that has saved ratepayers more than $1 million on their utility bills. These energy storage systems reduce costs for transmission and capacity charges, which directly benefit the ratepayers. In Sterling, NEC’s GSS® Grid Storage Solution also provides resiliency for the community in the event of an outage from severe weather and other causes.
NEC’s most recently contracted project with the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant (3 MW/6 MWh) will be one of the largest in New England to date. TMLP plans to operate the GSS® Grid Storage Solution from their Cleary-Flood Generating Station, where system conditions are monitored 24/7. Through reducing transmission and capacity costs during peak demand times, the project will provide savings to TMLP ratepayers for years to come.
“We have more than 750 megawatts of energy storage systems around the world from Japan and China to Hawaii and California, in Chile and Brazil and across the Atlantic to Germany and the UK. It is especially important for us to make an impact right here at home in Massachusetts and the rest of New England,” said Steve Fludder, CEO of NEC Energy Solutions. “We are a global leader reinventing electricity to a cleaner and more renewable system. It’s great to see our neighboring municipal light plants adopting our energy storage solutions and realizing substantial savings, which flow directly to those town’s ratepayers.”
The energy storage systems include NEC’s GSS® end-to-end grid storage solution and its AEROS® controls system, which is NEC’s proprietary energy storage control software platform. The storage systems are strategically dispatched to reduce the municipal power plants heaviest electric loads each month. These peak periods determine their yearly capacity costs and monthly transmission costs.
Three of Massachusetts municipal power plants including Ashburnham, Templeton and Wakefield are partnering with Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (“MMWEC”). The Wakefield, Ashburnham and Templeton projects use MMWEC’s peak load forecasting system and remote dispatch program. MMWEC staff predicts the best time to dispatch the batteries based on its forecasts of increased electricity demand, and the batteries are then remotely dispatched from MMWEC’s 24/7 operations center in Ludlow, Mass.
Several of the projects were made possible through grants from the Advancing Commonwealth Energy Storage (ACES) program, including Wakefield, Ashburnham and Taunton. The ACES program, a partnership between the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) and the state Department of Energy Resources (DOER), is a competitive grant initiative to pilot innovative, broadly-replicable energy storage projects that advance energy storage technologies in Massachusetts.
Sean Hamilton, General Manager of the Sterling Municipal Light Department said, “We were very fortunate to have the team we had that brought this project to life, including NEC Energy Solutions. From delivery through commissioning NEC was a great partner, even 2 years later they worked closely with MMWEC to help set up our dispatch program.”
“These projects continue to pay dividends as the combination of MMWEC’s peak forecasting program, along with these installations, are proving to be beneficial,” said MMWEC CEO Ronald C. DeCurzio.
Two years ago, the Sterling Municipal Light Department in Sterling, Massachusetts led the way by installing a 2MW/3.9 MWh NEC GSS® Grid Storage Solution to better manage demand during peak hours, store low-cost solar electricity not consumed during the day, and purchase electricity from the grid during low-demand times at night. Fully operational in December of 2016, just two years later, the savings for the rate payers of Sterling has exceeded $1 million.
About NEC Energy Solutions
NEC Energy Solutions designs, manufactures, and integrates smart energy storage solutions for the electric grid, behind the meter, and critical power applications. Its scalable distributed energy storage and control systems provide greater grid stability and flexibility to the benefit of both providers and users of electricity. In telecom, datacenter, and other industrial applications, its high performance lithium-ion battery systems provide better value than traditional lead-acid batteries in tough, critical power applications. Learn more at www.neces.com.
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