By Claire Hao | Houston Chronicle
Houston's first grid-scale battery energy storage system debuted Monday, giving the city a resource used to help stabilize the Texas power grid by storing electricity when it's plentiful and selling it back to the grid when it’s most needed.
Jupiter Power, an Austin-based energy developer, owns and operates the project at Hiram Clarke Road and U.S. 90 at the site of the former H.O. Clarke gas-fired power plant. It’s a 200-megawatt facility, enough to power 50,000 Texas homes during the hottest summer days, with the ability to discharge power at maximum capacity for two hours.
On any given day, the Houston area must import about 60% of its needed electricity from other parts of the state where power plants are more plentiful. This often results in a phenomenon known as congestion: Low-cost electrons are clogged on power lines into Houston much like commuters on the highway during rush hour, which raises the wholesale cost of electricity in the region. These wholesale price spikes are initially paid by retail electric providers and can eventually be passed onto consumers.
Battery storage facilities can help ease this congestion by charging from the grid when electricity prices are low and discharging that electricity back to the grid when prices are high — a business model that is lucrative for developers.
“The battery is perfect for the city of Houston. It takes very little land use,” said Caitlin Smith, Jupiter Power vice president of policy and corporate communications. “It responds instantaneously, and so it can meet the demand that Houston has when the power is not there.”
Jupiter's project, dubbed Callisto I, covers 8 acres and is the company's first outside of West Texas, where it has eight operating battery storage facilities. Though Callisto I is the first battery storage facility within Houston city limits, battery storage developers have flocked to other less urban areas in the region in recent years because of the area's power congestion issues.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator, has 8 gigawatts of battery storage on its system. Much more could be on the way; more than 151 gigawatts of battery storage projects are in various stages of applying to connect to the ERCOT grid.
Developers have faced pushback from residents in several municipalities over concern about the potential for fires and explosions. Jupiter Power didn’t encounter opposition with Callisto I, in part because the company located its project in an industrial area, Smith said. Jupiter Power was also able to repurpose the former gas-fired power plant’s electrical infrastructure for the battery storage facility, she said.
Battery storage facilities have supported the grid during the critical hours around sunset, when solar power production declines, multiple times this summer, helping ERCOT avoid issuing conservation alerts.
More battery storage facilities are needed on the Texas grid as it transitions to include more renewable power sources, according to clean energy advocates. Though solar and wind farms don’t release climate-warming emissions like the coal-fired and gas-fired power plants that have traditionally dominated the grid, they are reliant on weather conditions, an issue that battery storage facilities can mitigate by storing renewable power for later use.
“This critical project will help address peak power demand and is another great example of our region's leadership in scaling and deploying impactful solutions for an all the above energy future,” Jane Stricker, executive director of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative at the Greater Houston Partnership, said in a statement.
