Two storage systems Convergent Energy + Power financed and developed in Orange County, California, are now operational in Southern California Edison (SCE) territory. Convergent will operate and maintain the 9-MW/36-MWh and 6-MW/24-MWh lithium-ion energy storage systems at one of SCE’s substations in Santa Ana, California, using Convergent’s energy storage intelligence, PEAK IQ.
Convergent’s energy storage systems are providing resource adequacy to SCE. This improves grid reliability and renewables integration.
“Modernizing our electricity grid is critical to the future of energy and mitigating the climate crisis,” said Convergent CEO Johannes Rittershausen. “Energy storage is essential to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and Convergent is proud to continue demonstrating its value to customers and communities through innovative partners like SCE in strategic California locations at the forefront of change.”
Convergent’s PEAK IQ energy storage intelligence uses artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to ensure energy is stored and dispatched at the most strategic times.
News item from Convergent
They’re still stuck on the 4-hour dispatch design, actually with battery pack duty rates more like 3.5-hour design. With the mention of AI and machine learning algorithms, one should be building (multiples) of these mentioned BESS into a (matrix) of 6MW/24MWh modules to series for more capacity or parallel for more MWh of generation delivered to the grid. What’s not being done is a deep dive into local and regional switching stations and feeders into cities and towns where energy storage should be sited and whether it should be single power module or matrixed power modules. In a regional ESS one might want to go to a large solar PV or wind generation farm and put in an iron/air battery made by Form Energy. Very large ESS of iron/air batteries would take up some 200 acres of land for 600MWh energy storage system. Do this with LFP battery technology and one could expect around 800MWh. Stacking battery modules and power blocks vertically, maybe up to 4 stories could have 600 to 800MWh contained in 50 acres. Just sayin’, go big or go home.