U.S. ELECTRICITY INVESTMENT

WSJ - A California utility is seeking permission to have a company build the world's largest battery, joining a growing list of power companies investing in storing electricity.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., part of PG&E Corp., detailed plans for four storage projects totaling nearly 570 megawatts in a Friday filing to regulators, including a 300-megawatt battery installation at a natural-gas-fired power plant owned by Vistra Energy Corp.

That battery, the largest installation of its kind, would be owned by Vistra, and it would be capable of running for four hours while putting out the same amount of power as a small natural gas plant.

In addition, the utility is seeking approval for a 182.5 megawatt system built by Tesla Inc. that would be owned by PG&E, as well two smaller projects. The California Public Utilities Commission must approve the storage projects.

Cost estimates for all of the projects were not immediately available.

"Recent decreases in battery prices are enabling energy storage to become a competitive alternative to traditional solutions," said Roy Kuga, vice president of grid integration and innovation at PG&E.

A 100-megawatt battery installation built by Tesla in Australia is currently the world's largest in operation.

More battery projects are being built or are under consideration in the U.S., as utilities look for ways to store energy from wind and solar farms or replace plants that only run during peak hours.

In Arizona, NextEra Energy Inc. is developing a 30-megawatt battery to go with a 100-megawatt solar array for Tucson Electric Power. Arizona Public Service Co. on Friday issued a request for proposals to equip existing solar plants with batteries—part of a larger plan to add up to 500 megawatts of storage over the next 15 years.

Fluence Energy LLC is building a 100-megawatt installation in Long Beach, Calif., that could power about 60,000 homes in the southern part of the state for up to four hours.

The storage projects proposed by PG&E come several months after the California Public Utilities Commission directed Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the state's largest investor-owned utility, to solicit bids for renewable energy resources, including battery storage, to replace three costly fossil fuel plants.

That directive has helped put pressure on natural-gas-fired power plants in California, which are finding it harder to compete as the state looks to satisfy its aggressive clean energy goals and as the cost of renewable resources continues to decline.

PG&E says it expects the 182.5-megawatt system to come online by the end of 2020, pending the commission's approval. The company did not estimate the full cost of the project but predicts it will look to request about $41.2 million from ratepayers for the project in the first year it is operational.

The 300-megawatt battery project would be built at Vistra's Moss Landing power plant, which has produced electricity since 1950. The battery would hook up to the grid via existing connections at the site, where two older generating units were retired at the end of 2016.

Curt Morgan, chief executive of Vistra, said he sees more battery system investments in his company's future, especially wherever those installations can take advantage of power infrastructure already in place.

"I don't think it's any secret that California over time is trying to move away from fossil fuel power plants, so batteries are kind of a natural to provide power at the peak periods," he said.

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