Delorean Power LLC and Massachusetts public power utility Holden Municipal Light Department on Oct. 12 announced a new battery energy storage facility.
The project will be located in the town of Holden and will be owned and operated by Delorean to serve HMLD and its customers.
The 5-megawatt/22 megawatt-hour energy storage facility “will provide HMLD customers with protection from fast-rising capacity and transmission costs that batteries are ideally suited to mitigate,” a news release related to the project said.
The project, expected to be operational in October 2024, will utilize energy to charge during low-cost, off-peak hours which traditionally are the least carbon intensive, and then discharge during peak demand periods, replacing higher costs and higher emitting generation resources.
“The resulting shift in energy demand from on-peak to off-peak hours will lead to significant cost and environmental benefits for the customers of the Holden Municipal Light Department,” the news release noted.
The Delorean and HMLD energy storage project is the first in a series that Delorean has developed with facilitation from the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, the Commonwealth’s designated joint action agency for municipal utilities.
Delorean won a highly competitive MMWEC solicitation in late 2022 for an exclusive partnership to build similar energy storage projects across the state of Massachusetts, with many now expected to finish construction by the end of 2024.
“HMLD’s power portfolio is currently 60% non-carbon emitting, including wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear generating assets,” said HMLD General Manager Barry Tupper.
HMLD is currently ahead of the state mandated Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for municipal light plants for 2030. “With this project, HMLD is leading the way in environmental stewardship in a fiscally responsible manner. We are excited to add a battery storage system to our newly rebuilt Chaffins Substation to help us continue with our mission,” je said.
Delorean Power, MMWEC and HMLD staff “have spent countless hours working on this agreement and we at HMLD are looking forward to October 2024 when the battery storage will be operational.”
“HMLD’s energy storage project is forecast to deliver more than $10 million in transmission and capacity avoided costs over the life of the 20-year life expectancy of the system,” said MMWEC Director of Engineering and Generation Assets Jason Viadero.
Delorean is a utility-scale energy storage project developer, owner and operator with headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.
