Valley nonprofit electric utility Salt River Project is teaming up with a German company that makes long-duration energy storage systems for a pilot storage project to serve customers in the Phoenix metro.
The project, called Desert Blume, will use proprietary non-lithium battery technology from CMBlu Energy to store 5 megawatts of energy, mostly from solar generation during the daytime, for a 10-hour duration so that it can be released into the power grid during the night.
The energy storage capacity would be enough to power about 1,125 average homes for 10 hours, SRP said.
CMBlu will build, own and operate the batteries, which will be installed inside buildings at the Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center in Florence. The pilot project will be part of the third phase of development at Copper Crossing, where the first phase will include natural gas turbines and the second phase will add an advanced solar generation facility.
