Upton solar farm in Texas, where Vistra deployed its first battery storage system, completed in 2018. Image: Vistra Energy. The world’s largest battery energy storage system (BESS) so far has gone into operation in Monterey County, California, US retail electricity and power generation company Vistra said yesterday.
Capacity: 409MW/900MWh Claiming it to be the world’s largest solar-powered battery, FPL developed the Manatee Energy Storage Center Project with a capacity of 409 MW and the ability to supply 900 MWh of energy. In simple terms, the capacity of the battery is enough to power about 329,000 households for more than two hours.
Chinese battery companies BYD, CATL and EVE Energy are the three largest producers of energy storage batteries, especially the cheaper LFP batteries. This month Rolls-Royce signed a deal with CATL to help deploy the company’s batteries in the EU and the UK.
PG&E’s project, currently under construction using Tesla Energy battery storage system equipment, will also be among the world’s biggest battery storage projects when completed, at 182.5MW / 730MWh.
One of these bottlenecks is the variable nature of renewable energy. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), also known as Big Batteries, provide electricity grids with a wide range of benefits – recourse in times of imbalance in the supply or demand of electricity, managing frequency and stabilizing the grid, etc.
China’s CATL, the world’s largest battery producer, says its energy storage batteries can last for 25 years. Will it save the planet? Not on its own — but grid-scale energy storage is part of the combination of clean energy technologies that is needed to reach net zero.