Burbank Water and Power Enters Agreement for First Utility-Scale Battery Storage Project

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
November 8, 2022

ESS Inc. and California public power utility Burbank Water and Power (BWP) have entered into an agreement for ESS to deliver BWP’s first utility-scale battery storage project.

Under the agreement, a 75 kilowatt (kW)/500 kilowatt hour kWh ESS “Energy Warehouse” will be installed and connected to a 265 kW solar array on BWP’s EcoCampus.

The iron flow battery will support the increased use of renewable power and allow excess renewable energy to be stored and used as baseload energy for Burbank, improving the resilience and reliability of the grid, ESS said on Nov. 4.

“BWP is already using small-scale battery technology at our substations, but we see the value in adding considerably more storage to the network. This initiative will be the largest battery installed in Burbank, providing enough renewable power for 300 homes annually,” said Mandip Samra, Assistant General Manager for Power Supply at BWP, in a statement. “The project is a big step forward to help meet our goal of having a greenhouse gas-free power supply by 2040 and providing energy storage for Burbank now and for decades to come.”

The storage system is expected to be installed in Burbank by December 2023.

In September 2022, another California public power utility, SMUD, and ESS Inc. announced an agreement to provide up to 200 megawatts/2 gigawatt-hours of long duration energy storage that will be provided by ESS.