The Salt River Project is continuing its commitment to meet Arizona’s energy needs with a future grid expansion near Coolidge, the company announced Monday.
In partnership with Flatland Storage LLC, a subsidiary of EDP Renewables North America LLC, SRP will be installing a battery-storage system made up of lithium-ion technology to produce 200 megawatts of energy. The system will provide enough energy to service up to 45,000 homes for four of the most demanding hours of the day.
SRP said the storage system is scheduled to go online in spring 2025 and will save more than 169 million gallons of water than existing energy in the area.
“Battery energy storage is an essential piece of SRP’s plan to decarbonize our portfolio and maximize the amount of renewable energy delivered to our customers,” SRP associate general manager Bobby Olsen said in a press release.
EDP’s second agreement with the Arizona-based energy company is adding onto 1,300 megawatts of storage and close to 3,000 megawatts of energy resources. Through analysis of their Integrated System Plan, SRP projected it will have to at least double its number of storage systems to keep the Valley’s electricity running at an adequate pace.
“We’re excited to be partnering with SRP on the largest utility-scale storage project in the EDP Group’s global portfolio to date,” CEO of EDP Renewables North America Sandhya Ganapathy said in a release. “Storage is key to modernizing the US power grid and is a requisite in accelerating the adoption of renewable energy, while boosting grid reliability and resiliency.”
The Flatland Energy Storage Project will inject more than $271 million into the regional economy and $7 million in tax payments to local governmental agencies.
Also, 60 construction jobs, both seasonal and permanent maintenance positions, will be created from the project.
SRP is currently working on other similar-type energy storage systems which, when completed by 2028, will cut its carbon output in half.
