wind farm

Four US energy firms have planned an $8 billion wind storage project that includes a 1.2GW compressed air storage system.

The companies, Pathfinder Renewable Wind Energy, Magnum Energy, Dresser-Rand and Duke-American Transmission, plan to construct a 2.1GW wind farm in Wyoming to bring power to Los Angeles in California. High voltage lines would send the electricity to a salt-cavern compressed air site in Utah and then be released at times of peak demand in the Los Angeles area.

US power utility giant Duke Energy and energy storage provider Xtreme Power have commenced operations at the Notrees Energy Storage unit, a 36 MW battery system integrated in a 153 MW wind farm in western Texas.

The facility at Notrees provides flexible capacity to the Electric Reliability Council Of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the electrical grid in Texas and manages 75% of the deregulated market in the state. Xtreme Power’s control system, XACT, will manage real-time performance and response of the system in response to site and grid conditions.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) provided Duke Energy with a $22 million grant to develop the project. The US Electric Power Research Institute will collect performance data from the battery storage system and help assess the potential for broader adoption of energy storage solutions throughout the industry.

Results from the storage project at Notrees wind farm will be shared publically via the DOE.