Pinal County’s Eleven Mile Solar System has come online featuring one of the largest battery energy storage systems built in a single phase in the US. All battery enclosures for the project were delivered by Fluence.
From pv magazine’s ESS News
Denmark’s largest power provider and wind project developer Ørsted and and US utility Salt River Project (SRP) have switched on the Eleven Mile Solar Center, a 300 MW solar project collocated with a 300MW/1200MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), in Pinal County, Arizona.
The project is part of Ørsted’s $20 billion dollar investment in US energy generation projects. Eleven Mile Solar Center is SRP’s largest co-located solar and BESS project, providing power to businesses, homes, and Meta’s data center in Mesa, AZ.
“Arizona has one of the highest growth rates of electricity in the country due to the surge in data centers and the reshoring of American manufacturing. With our first project in Arizona now complete, we’re thrilled to help meet the growing demand of the state and region with reliable, domestic energy,” said David Hardy, Group EVP and CEO Americas at Ørsted.
The project represents an approximate $1 billion investment by Ørsted in clean energy for Arizona and will generate approximately $80 million to the local community for public services in the form of tax revenue, the company said in a press release.
Technology suppliers were US-based companies, such as First Solar, Fluence, NEXTracker, in procuring panels, batteries, and tracking equipment for the project.
All enclosures for the Eleven Mile Solar Center were delivered from Fluence’s production facility in Utah. The joint venture between Siemens and AES Corporation announced last month that it had also started building battery energy storage modules at its Utah facility, which will incorporate battery cells manufactured in Tennessee in a bid to offer solutions that qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act’s domestic content bonus tax credit.
With the addition of Eleven Mile, SRP has nearly 3,000 MW of carbon-free energy – including more than 1,400 MW of solar – serving its customers. SRP also has nearly 1,300 MW of battery and pumped hydro storage supporting its grid.
The utility aims to at least double the number of generating resources on its power system in the next 10 years to meet increasing energy demand in the Phoenix metropolitan area as it moves forward with the planned retirement of 1,300 MW of coal resources.
Eleven Mile Solar Center joins Ørsted’s growing onshore portfolio, now generating over 5,000 MW across the U.S., with more capacity set to come online before the end of the year.
