Project Will Boost Service During Hot Summer Months. Original article posted by Con Edison Media Relations on April 12, 2021 at coned.com
Con Edison is bringing energy storage technology to City Island in the Bronx to improve reliability and help reduce carbon emissions.
The battery system on a customer property at 220 City Island Avenue can provide 1 megawatt – or a million watts – to customers along the business strip. That will take stress off the Con Edison grid on hot summer days when electrical usage soars. It’ll also displace power generated by less efficient fossil fuel-fired plants.
“Battery technology can help us accomplish several goals on behalf of our customers,” said Santee Hernandez, Con Edison’s project manager. “Power being discharged from a battery when our customers need it the most means less demand on our electric-delivery equipment. And deploying batteries is another way we are leading the transition to a clean energy future.”
It is the second lithium-ion battery system Con Edison and its partner GI Energy have placed at a customer property in New York City under a demonstration project. The first went into service early last year on the North Shore of Staten Island. An agreement guarantees Con Edison the right to discharge the batteries to provide power to its customers as needed.
Under the demonstration project, GI Energy and Con Edison are able to choose customer locations where Con Edison’s analysis shows the electrical grid needs support. When Con Edison is not using the energy storage unit for grid support, GI Energy plans to dispatch the battery into the wholesale market.
The project underwent an extensive safety review by the Fire Department of New York and the city Department of Buildings.
Battery storage will take on greater importance as the state increases the amount of renewable energy lighting homes and businesses, running vehicles and providing heating and cooling. That renewable energy will include 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind power.
Batteries allow energy companies to store power generated by clean renewables and have that energy on hand for times the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.
Con Edison and a partner, 174 Power Global recently announced a mammoth 100-megawatt/400-megawatt hour battery at the site of a former fossil fuel plant near the East River in Astoria, Queens.
The company also has a 2-megawatt storage system in Ozone Park, Queens.
