This week, Golden Valley Electric Association (GVEA) and Westinghouse Electric Company (Westinghouse) were notified by the Department of Energy (DOE) that a proposed project to deploy a Long-Duration Energy Storage (LDES) system in Healy, Alaska, was selected for a $50 million grant.
“GVEA is pleased that Westinghouse's Long Duration Energy Storage demonstration project has been selected by the DOE and we thank all project participants for their efforts,” said John Burns, GVEA President and CEO. “As a not-for-profit cooperative, GVEA's focus is on providing its members with low-cost and reliable electric power, while reducing emissions. We are excited about the potential that Long Duration Energy Storage can play in integrating renewable energy, not only in Interior Alaska, but the rest of the Railbelt electric system which serves over 80% of Alaska’s population.”
LDES has the potential to support large scale renewable projects by firming up intermittent variable power while also providing local and regional grid resiliency. The purpose of the DOE grant is to demonstrate whether LDES at large utility scale (100 MW+) can reliably provide 10 or more hours of energy storage. The LDES demonstration project will progress in phases. The first phase is to demonstrate the viability of the technology at utility scale, with subsequent stages culminating in the deployment of the LDES technology.
If successful, the LDES technology will benefit GVEA’s Strategic Generation Plan by reducing electric costs while maintaining reliability and decreasing carbon emissions. The LDES can also aid in accelerating decarbonization efforts across the Railbelt.
Additional participants in the LDES demonstration project are Arctic Slope Regional Corporation Energy Services, the Electric Power Research Institute and Shell Global Solutions US, Inc.