Southern California Edison (SCE) on Sept. 8 filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission an Engineering, Design, Procurement and Construction Letter Agreement with AltaGas Pomona Energy Inc. for the latest in a series of energy storage projects prompted by the damaged Aliso Canyon facility.
On May 31, 2016, the California Public Utilities Commission issued Resolution E-4791, which authorized expedited procurement of storage resources to ensure electric reliability in the Los Angeles Basin due to limited operations of Aliso Canyon Gas Storage Facility. The resolution, among other things, required SCE to hold an expedited competitive energy storage procurement solicitation to help alleviate outage risks during the upcoming winter of 2016-2017. Storage projects secured through this solicitation are required to be on-line by Dec. 31, 2016.
AltaGas Pomona submitted an interconnection request to SCE for a facility named the AltaGas Pomona Energy Storage Project and for distribution service for 20 MW of power produced by the project to the California ISO-operated grid at SCE’s Simpson 66-kV Substation in Pomona, California.
In order to meet the requested in-service date, SCE proposed and AltaGas Pomona accepted that SCE begin engineering, design, procurement and construction prior to executing a Generator Interconnection Agreement (GIA) for the project. The deal filed Sept. 8 provides an interim arrangement whereby SCE will commence the engineering, design, procurement and construction, and AltaGas Pomona will pay for such work.
AltaGas Pomona is proposing to construct and operate a 20-MW battery energy storage facility. The project will supplement the existing 42.783 net MW (44.0 gross MW) gas turbine generating facility (San Gabriel Cogeneration) located in Pomona, California. The total MW output from the combined resources (proposed battery energy storage and existing gas turbine) will be 64.0 MW. The net output of the combined resources will be limited to 42.783 MW.
A project contact listed in the filing is: AltaGas Pomona Energy Inc., Scott Valentino, Vice President, Finance, Scott.Valentino@altagas.ca, 1717 McKinney Avenue, Suite 1040, Dallas, TX 75202.
Notable is that up for review at the Sept. 15 meeting of the California PUC is a resolution that would okay SCE requests for approval of three resource adequacy only contracts with Western Grid Development LLC, AltaGas Pomona Energy Storage Inc. and Grand Johanna LLC. This resolution supports Gov. Jerry Brown’s Emergency Proclamation to protect public safety by ensuring the continued reliability of natural gas and electric supplies while there is a moratorium on gas injections at the damaged Aliso Canyon facility.
The projects are:
- Western Grid Development, Santa Paula 1 project, 5 MW, three-year contract, Lithium Ion Battery project;
- AltaGas Pomona Energy Storage, Pomona Battery Storage 1 project, 20 MW, ten-year contract, Lithium Ion Battery project;
- Grand Johanna, Grand Johanna project, 2 MW, ten-year contract, Lithium Ion Battery project.
Each project has an initial on-line date of Dec. 31, 2016, and varying dates in 2017 that represent the projects’ deadlines to complete all steps necessary to achieve full resource adequacy capacity.
