Energy Storage

Duke Energy taps Wärtsilä to manage multiple energy storage projects

Duke Energy taps Wärtsilä to manage multiple energy storage projects

Technology group Wärtsilä announced that it has signed a contract with Duke Energy for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) of three battery storage facilities over the past six months. These facilities will be in U.S. states North Carolina and Indiana.

The projects include Duke Energy’s Asheville (8.8-MW/8.8-MWh) and Hot Springs (4-MW/4-MWh coupled with a 3-MWdc solar generating system) project sites as well as Duke Energy’s Crane (4.95-MW/5-MWh) project in Crane, Indiana. Wärtsilä will be building all three facilities under the EPC contract.

Additionally, Wärtsilä said that Duke will use the GEMS energy management platform across the utility’s existing and planned battery storage sites and solar assets across six distribution areas. Wärtsilä said that its GEMS platform was selected for its real-time control and protection, revenue stacking and fleet visibility capabilities. GEMS will allow the North Carolina facilities to dispatch energy, provide emergency backup power and balance the local grid, while also integrating clean energy into Duke Energy’s service territory.

“This collaboration with Duke Energy is a significant milestone for us,” said Andrew Tang, Vice President, Energy Storage and Optimization at Wärtsilä Energy. “Duke Energy is specifically utilizing the GEMS Fleet Director and GEMS Power Plant Controller to monitor, assess and optimize deployments across multiple regions in real-time and integrating GEMS as a data source for their specialized algorithms and analytics. GEMS will be customized for Duke Energy’s deployments to increase grid resilience at sites that require energy storage backup and to ultimately facilitate the first-ever entry into the Midcontinent Independent System Operator market.”

The three storage project sites are expected to be commissioned during 2020 and 2021.

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