California Construction News staff writer
The California Energy Commission (CEC) has approved a $42 million grant to build a long-duration energy storage project at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County.
The project will provide electricity to the statewide grid and backup power to the base for up to 14 days during power outages.
The grant was awarded to International Electric Power through the CEC’s Long-Duration Energy Storage Program, that funds demonstrations of non-lithium-ion technologies to create a diverse portfolio of 8-hour-plus energy storage technologies. To date, $170 million has been awarded for seven projects. Today’s grant is the largest awarded under the program.
“Long-duration and multi-day energy storage technologies will help California achieve its clean energy goals by enhancing how we store power generated by renewable resources,” said CEC Chair David Hochschild. “This landmark energy storage project continues a long collaboration between the Energy Commission and the military to bring emerging clean technologies to maturity and help reduce pollution, support grid reliability and advance climate solutions.”
The project will be built at the base’s Haybarn Energy Reliability Center. It will initially provide 6 megawatts (MW)/48 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy storage using zinc hybrid cathode aqueous battery technology. Plans call for it to be expanded later to 50 MW/400 MWh.
The system will provide power to the statewide grid when it is not providing backup power to the base. It will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuel-powered back-up generation and demonstrate solutions that can be scaled and replicated to meet the state’s climate and clean energy goals. It is expected to be operational in summer 2027.
The CEC estimates that more than 48 gigawatts (GW) of traditional battery storage and 4 GW of long-duration energy storage will be needed to meet the state’s goal of 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. Typical battery storage, which mostly encompasses lithium-ion technology, has an industry standard of 2 to 4 hours of discharge. Long-duration energy storage can currently provide power for up to 100 hours.
California has more than 13,300 MW of battery storage installed today. Within the past five years, the state has grown its battery storage capacity by more than 15 times, up from just 770 MW in 2019.
The project will help support the Marine Corps’ largest West Coast expeditionary training facility, which encompasses more than 125,000 acres in San Diego County.
The base is one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s busiest installations, offering training facilities for active and reserve Marine, Army, and Navy units as well as national, state, and local agencies. It supports more than 70,000 military and civilian personnel and their families.
“This project is cutting edge and innovative,” said Peter Dailey, CEO of International Electric Power. “With the help of CEC’s leadership and its significant financial contribution, the project will provide the base with incomparable resiliency and state of the art energy security. International Electric Power is honored to be part of the team to provide an American technology to meet this readiness need.”
For more information on long-duration energy storage and a list of funded projects, visit the CEC’s LDES web page.
