Salt River Project has announced it will be building a new battery-storage site in eastern Arizona.
The utility says it will have new tech capable of lasting for twice as long as traditional utility batteries.
That’s because the new batteries will use carbon dioxide. The CO2 is stored as a liquid, then when energy is needed, it is heated into a gas which drives turbines.
SRP says those batteries will be able to power more than 4,200 homes for over 10 hours. Traditional lithium-ion batteries tend to cap out at 4 hours.
That time constraint is often cited as one of the major limitations for renewable energy sources like solar, which can’t provide energy overnight.
Tessa Murdock with SRP says the project comes through a partnership with Google.
“Google will kind of cost-share with us a portion of the pilot cost and then in return they will receive the operational performance data and also input on some of the research," Murdock said.
The plant is expected to be operational in 2029.
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