As more of Arizona’s energy comes from the sun, utilities are trying new ways of capturing all that power.
APS has launched a major battery-storage project for customers in the West Valley.
The batteries have enough storage to power 1,000 homes. During the day, they’ll collect the excess energy produced by 1,500 homes with rooftop solar systems. The batteries will then kick in when energy demand spikes in those areas. Scott Bordenkircher with APS says they’ll study how the batteries make the grid more reliable and potentially cut the cost of generating electricity.
“Solar systems on rooftops that might come on and off due to clouds or weather, the battery is able to smooth over that power that’s flowing onto the grid,” Bordenkircher said.
At the moment, only about 100 APS customers have their own batteries. Often they’re just for backup. But the technology is evolving rapidly and as costs come down, APS will likely have many more batteries, owned both by the utility and individual solar customers, coming online.
