Arizona public power utility Salt River Project and NextEra Energy Resources on March 14 announced Arizona’s largest operational battery energy storage system is now online.
Sonoran Solar Energy Center is a 260-megawatt solar facility with the ability to charge a 1 gigawatt-hour battery energy storage system, located south of Buckeye, Arizona.
“The solar and battery storage system is adding clean energy to the grid and will help match the electricity consumed by Google’s forthcoming data center campus in Mesa, Arizona,” SRP said.
Energy not needed by the data center will be used to meet other SRP customer needs.
Also supporting Google is the newly developed Storey Energy Center, an 88-MW solar and battery storage system, located in Coolidge, Arizona.
Both facilities are operated by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources.
SRP and NextEra Energy Resources’ under development wind facility, Babbitt Ranch Energy Center, will also support Google. This is a 161-MW wind project, on Babbitt Ranches property in Coconino County, north of Flagstaff.
Google is pursuing net-zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2030, supported by a goal to run its data centers and office campuses on 24/7 carbon-free energy.
“The Sonoran, Storey and Babbitt Ranch projects contribute to these commitments by supporting the energy needs of Google’s future data center in Mesa, which the company announced in 2023 with plans to use air-cooled technology,” SRP said.
SRP noted it is taking significant, industry-leading steps to decarbonize its power generation portfolio while serving one of the fastest growing service territories in the country.
Through its Integrated System Plan, SRP found it will need to at least double the number of power resources on its power system in the next 10 years.
“Adding this significant number of resources must happen at this pace to meet growing energy demand in the Phoenix metropolitan area and as SRP completes the planned retirement of 2,600 MW of coal resources,” it said.
More than 2,300 MW of carbon-free energy resources – including more than 1,000 MW of solar—are serving SRP customers, and more than 600 MW of batteries and pumped hydro storage are supporting SRP’s power grid.
SRP also has significantly more solar energy capacity currently under development.
Once all under-development solar is operational, total solar capacity on SRP’s power system will exceed SRP’s goal, equaling more than 2,400 MW.
Additional battery energy storage capacity is also under development, which will bring SRP’s total battery storage to more than 1,100 MW by the end of 2024.
