Cyrus Ashtiani, chief technology officer of EnerDel, said: “Energy storage is a key component of the smart grid, as well as a crucial tool for enhancing both the reliability and the availability of renewable but often intermittent energy sources like wind and solar. We expect this sector to be a major growth area for the battery industry. This programme is a breakthrough opportunity for EnerDel to prove the capabilities of our systems in partnership with one of the most innovative electric utilities in the country.”
Each of the five EnerDel battery systems will store energy to power approximately 400 average American homes simultaneously for up to an hour at a time utilizing the same core chemistry as EnerDel batteries designed for the new generation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The new systems will be used in concert with a variety of both hardware and software solutions to improve system reliability during peak demand loads.
The PGE project will be built in Salem, Oregon, where it will serve both residential and commercial customers. Equipment will be installed at 15 sites over the next two years, after which developers will spend two to three years testing system performance under wide variety of geographic and meteorological conditions.
