Duke Energy plans to upgrade its 36-megawatt energy storage and power management system at the utility’s Notrees Windpower Project in west Texas to better serve the local grid, the utility said in a June news release.

The large-scale battery project has been in operation at the utility’s 153-MW wind power project since 2012. Duke plans to work with Samsung SDI to upgrade the Notrees storage project to lithium-ion batteries and an associated battery management system, and with Younicos to install an energy storage management system.

The lithium-ion batteries are expected to boost the system’s performance while the energy storage management system will interpret the grid signal and allow the project to store and dispatch energy as needed, the project partners said in the news release. Samsung SDI estimates the batteries have 8 to 10 years of life, depending operating temperature and number of complete operating cycles, and the level of charge maintained on the battery during its lifespan, a spokesperson from Duke said.

Thus far, the Notrees storage project has allowed the utility to achieve its objectives in partnership with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the U.S. Department of Energy, said Greg Wolf, president of Duke Energy’s commercial portfolio, in the news release. The upgrade will allow the facility to better match its most valuable function in the Texas market, which is fast response frequency regulation, Wolf said.

ERCOT signals the storage system to either dispatch stored energy to increase frequency or absorb energy to decrease frequency, which smooths and balances peaks and valleys on the ERCOT grid. This allows the system to respond quickly and provide additional grid management services.

Duke owns 15 percent of the grid-connected, battery-based energy storage capacity in the United States, according to IHS Energy. The Notrees project is one of the nation’s largest energy storage projects, Duke said, and is located in Ector and Winkler Counties in Texas. 

Anh Tuan