By Nicola Noivo and Jorge Garcia
(Reuters) – A massive battery factory near Los Angeles will be among the largest in the world when it comes into operation later this year, promising to bolster California’s power grid during the peak summer season and help the state meet ambitious climate goals .
Calpine’s billion-dollar Nova Power Bank, built on the site of a failed gas power plant, will be capable of powering about 680,000 homes for up to four hours when charged. It could help boost California’s renewable energy industries, which provide more than a third of the state’s energy needs.
The 680-megawatt lithium-ion battery bank is large even for California, which has about 55% of the nation’s energy storage capacity, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Calpine will bring 620 MW of the bank online in two phases this year, starting in the summer, and open the remaining 60 MW in 2025.
Battery designs in the hundreds of megawatts are becoming more common. Such large systems exist or are under development in California, Florida, Australia, the United Kingdom, and China.
Calpine’s new facilities are part of a U.S. storage boom centered in California and Texas, two states with large and growing amounts of wind and solar energy. Energy storage is considered vital to the expansion of renewable energy because it allows electricity generated when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing to be used later in the day when consumers need it most.
California was a pioneer in requiring its utilities to begin purchasing energy storage more than a decade ago. The state is expected to need about 50 gigawatts of battery storage to meet its 2045 goal of getting all of its power from carbon-free sources, up from about 7 GW today.
Calpine, best known in the state for its fleet of gas plants, has about 2,000 MW of battery capacity in development.
Battery capacity has expanded dramatically in California since 2020, when rolling blackouts during a summer heat wave prompted state officials to launch an emergency procurement. Two years later, batteries provided valuable power during a September heat wave, accounting for 2.4% of overnight generation, according to the state’s grid operator, California Independent System Operator.
“This plant will help stabilize the grid, especially for reliability purposes,” said Emily Precht, strategic origination manager at Calpine, at a press conference to unveil the project in Menifee, California.
“When people get home from work and turn on their electric cars, turn on their dishwashers and air conditioners, there is a lot of demand for energy, (but) not as much solar production. the day (and) moving it to a period of higher demand will help make the grid more resilient.”
New network storage installations in the US increased 98% last year, according to research firm Wood Mackenzie, which expects 30% growth this year.
Battery facilities still face licensing challenges and long interconnection queues that are slowing their expansion, Wood Mackenzie said.
They also need to contend with gas, which today still provides more than half of California’s energy needs.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom and Jorge Garcia; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
