The largest merchant energy storage facility in the world has just been completed in Texas, according to the companies behind the project.
Construction of the Madero and Ignacio energy storage plants, built by Eolian LP and Wärtsilä Energy, began in 2021. Now that they're complete, the plants will help Texas provide residents with over 500 megawatt hours (MWh) of energy storage.
"Texas needs more flexible capacity solutions like energy storage for grid support and energy resource optimization," Risto Paldanius, Wärtsilä's vice president, Americas, told PV Magazine.
The project is reportedly the first in the U.S. to claim the Investment Tax Credit for standalone utility-scale energy storage systems, a new law that's part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The Texas power grid failed catastrophically in 2021 after the state was hit by severe winter storms. Over 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without electricity as a result of the crisis, with at least 246 people losing their lives directly or indirectly from the power failure.
Unfortunately, a year later, it seemed that little had changed, as Texas's power grid still had not been winterized to protect against the types of extreme weather events that are becoming increasingly common as our planet's climate continues to be altered by our use of dirty energy sources, among other causes.
Although some progress has since been made, questions persist about the state's susceptibility to major blackouts.
However, the Madero and Ignacio energy storage plants' creators claim that the plants can employ "cutting-edge technology" to help to alleviate those problems.
"Texas needs more flexible capacity solutions like energy storage for grid support and energy resource optimization," Paldanius said in a press release. "This will help the state as it faces the natural replacement cycle of older inflexible generators and adapts to more frequent extreme weather events."
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