At 1.5 megawatts, the battery destined for a college or university campus around Petersburg, Virginia, could possibly not be the mightiest in Dominion Energy’s rising storage fleet.
But really do not undervalue its electricity and attain.
In addition to delivering backup electrical power for Virginia State University’s primary sports and enjoyment location, it will provide as a arms-on laboratory and research project for engineering pupils and faculty at the historically Black college.
“This is so fascinating,” mentioned Dawit Haile, dean of VSU’s College or university of Engineering and Technological innovation. “Our learners never know the issues we are having to preserve vitality when you need it later. Storage is the lacking piece.”
It is not the initially time the 4,000-student university has collaborated with the state’s biggest utility. For quite a few many years, Dominion has lined up pros to educate learners enrolled in a specialized electric power and energy curriculum.
That relationship prompted Haile to nudge Dominion when he found out the utility was trying to find web-sites to examination metallic-hydrogen battery technological know-how alternatively of a additional commonplace lithium-ion design. The attraction of steel-hydrogen, a regular in the aerospace sector, is that the resources are longer-long lasting and a lot slower to discharge.
“We ended up really searching for a college so we could pull in the mastering component,” reported Dominion’s Ellen Jackson, software manager for the pilot job. “VSU really wants this to be a seen portion of their campus.”
Utility regulators are now examining the proposal, which a hearing examiner with the State Corporation Commission has now proposed for acceptance. If greenlighted, it is predicted to be operational by the stop of 2027.
“Cost for the entire package and caboodle is $14.4 million,” Jackson mentioned, referencing the architectural design and style, development and installation of a remaining item with a footprint that will possible involve more than two dozen containers measuring 11 feet by 9 ft.
Haile, who has taught at VSU for 27 several years, is keen for college students to dive into classes about battery configuration, making and upkeep. Gathered knowledge will support them evaluate efficiency, longevity and operational prices.
“So quite a few of us take it for granted that strength powering our properties will be there, and we really don’t think about the resource,” he stated. “Any chance we get to assist students master more about this profession, it’s a plus.”
On focus on for 250 MW by 2025
The VSU pilot job is a smaller slice of the volume of battery storage the Common Assembly expects Dominion to meet up with to comply with the Virginia Clear Economic system Act.
By upcoming yr, that number wants to reach 250 MW. Targets are slated to rise to 1,200 MW by 2030 and then much more than double to 2,700 MW by 2035. Dominion is aiming for 65% of the battery assignments to be organization-owned and the remainder to be energy order agreements with third-bash proprietors.
“We’re very well on our way to meeting that very first target,” claimed Brandon Martin, who manages a small business advancement workforce that oversees Dominion’s battery initiatives. “We’ve observed a great deal of pricing volatility, but some of that will commence to do the job its way out.”
So considerably, Dominion has petitioned the State Company Fee for a complete of 180 MW of battery storage projects. Of people, 98 MW are business-owned and the remaining 82 MW have 3rd-get together house owners with energy obtain agreements.
The greatest a person that regulators have accredited is at Dulles Worldwide Airport in Northern Virginia’s Loudoun County.
When done in late 2026, it will produce up to 100 MW of solar electricity and retail outlet up to 50 MW of energy, adequate thoroughly clean vitality to electrify additional than 37,000 Virginia households at peak output. Dominion broke floor on that undertaking very last August.
“In the large photograph, battery storage might be in its infancy, but it’s the unsung hero of the renewable electrical power profile,” Martin reported. “It’s essential to be able to store and discharge when the sunlight is not shining and the wind isn’t blowing.”
Meanwhile, the 1.5 MW initiative for VSU is just one of three non-lithium-ion battery projects—totaling about 10.5 MW—under critique by regulators. Other pioneering tasks in the combine are a 5 MW iron-air battery and a 4 MW zinc-hybrid battery that Dominion designs to set up at the gas-fired Darbytown Electric power Station in Henrico County, near Richmond.
If accepted, design on the pair of Darbytown pilots would be operational by late 2026.
Batteries aren’t a a person-dimension-matches-all know-how, claimed Martin, incorporating that smaller sized tasks are geared for the distribution side of electron shipping.
“Trying out nascent technologies is likely to be important for long run deployment,” he reported. “Utilities need to know if they’ll perform as anticipated.”
Interim vitality storage targets spelled out in the Thoroughly clean Overall economy Act permit the utility to innovate with a selection of technologies before scaling up.
The advantages of experimenting with methods other than lithium is the prolonged discharge time, availability and durability, Martin said. For occasion, an iron-air battery can discharge energy for up to 100 hours. Whilst zinc-hybrid batteries have roughly the exact discharge time as a lithium-ion design, they are produced with a readily obtainable chemical ingredient.
“They never compete with the very same raw supplies,” he explained, referencing the large desire for lithium for electric powered vehicles, mobile phones and other electronics. “As you are imagining about geopolitical considerations and selling price volatility, these elements get that out of the mix.”
Nonetheless, Martin ongoing, promising thoughts need to have a path to commercialization or they will remain on a shelf collecting dust.
“It’s exciting that this area has a range of new entrants,” he said. “Other utilities will be piloting diverse systems. By not all picking the identical ones, the energy community can study what’s prosperous and the place substantially faster.
“We want to give as many alternatives as probable at the cheapest price tag to customers.”
Battery to be shipped from Kentucky
The groups that both Martin and Jackson lead have invested plenty of several hours comparing notes with utility peer teams, technology sellers and industry experts at the nonprofit Electric powered Energy Investigate Institute (EPRI) to slim down their battery options.
For instance, Dominion has contracted with EnerVenue, a California business, to establish the metallic-hydrogen battery for the VSU campus.
The business, launched in 2020 by a Stanford University resources science researcher, is borrowing the exact same technology that the Nationwide Aeronautics and House Administration deployed to energy signature — and distant — enterprises these kinds of as the Hubble Place Telescope, the Mars Exploration Rovers and the Global House Station.
“This is a confirmed chemistry that we are commercializing for the grid,” claimed Brad Dore, EnerVenue’s vice president of international advertising and marketing. “The big difference is that NASA didn’t have to care about the price — and we do.”
In a nutshell, here’s how it is effective. Throughout the electricity charging procedure, the drinking water inside the vessel is break up, building hydrogen fuel. At discharge, that fuel recombines into water.
Such batteries can discharge for up to 12 hours, claimed Dore, additional than double the ability of a regular lithium-ion battery.
He emphasized that the charging procedure is secure, repeatable and does not lead to the degradation popular with battery chemistries these as lithium-ion. The other plus, he additional, is that the metallic, which is 99% nickel, suggests most of the battery is recyclable when it does ultimately dress in out.
After Dominion partnered with VSU, the utility collaborated with EPRI researchers to form as a result of technologies and makers, as effectively as essentials this kind of as price and land footprint.
“They did a lot of the legwork for us,” Jackson said about matching a battery with the 6,000-seat Multi-Goal Middle, which attracts audiences from the college and the community.
The good thing is, the battery will not have to be transported from California simply because EnerVenue declared a 12 months in the past that it is setting up an strength storage factory in Shelby County, in north central Kentucky. That will translate to a much shorter vacation to the Petersburg campus 3 several years from now.
In the meantime, Haile and fellow faculty users are building a energy storage curriculum.
The professor is presently anticipating the new battery could be a springboard to attract a lot more on-campus power storage tasks as the technological innovation evolves.
“The potential is enormous,” he reported. “Our mission right here is accessibility and chance, so to be able to show our pupils what the long term is, that’s a big deal.”
Dominion battery pilot to present fingers-on coaching at traditionally Black college in Virginia is an posting from Vitality Information Network, a nonprofit news services covering the clean electricity transition. If you would like to guidance us make sure you make a donation.