Batteries

Xcel Energy to add battery storage at two retiring coal plants

Xcel Energy to add battery storage at two retiring coal plants
(Xcel Energy's Comanche Generating Station. Source: Wikimedia.)

Xcel Energy entered into an agreement with Form Energy to deploy the latter’s iron-air battery systems at two of the utility’s retiring coal plants.

Xcel will deploy a 10 MW / 1,000 MWh multi-day storage system at the Sherburne County Generating Station in Becker, Minnesota. Xcel Energy–Colorado will deploy a 10 MW / 1,000 MWh multi-day storage system at the Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo, Colorado. Both projects are expected to come online as early as 2025 and are subject to regulatory approvals.

The partners used modeling to validate how Form’s multi-day storage could integrate large amounts of wind energy and other renewable resources.

“This analysis demonstrated that Form Energy’s 100-hour iron-air battery technology will strengthen the grid against normal day-to-day, week-to-week, and season-to-season weather variability, in addition to extreme weather events including severe winter storms and polar vortex events,” read a statement from Xcel Energy.

Xcel Energy has a goal of reducing carbon emissions 80% by 2030 and to deliver carbon-free electricity by 2050.

In November 2022 the utility announced plans to retire the Tolk Generating Station in Texas by 2028. The proposal will go before Texas regulators in February 2023. If approved, this would put the company on the path toward a coal exit by 2030.

Xcel expects a diverse mix of replacement generation, including wind and solar, to be developed near Tolk after coal operations are retired.

According to Xcel Energy’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan, the utility plans to acquire or build up approximately 3,150 MW of utility scale solar, approximately 2,650 MW of wind and 250 MW of storage capacity by 2034.

By 2032, Xcel says it will have added 2,150 MW of new wind and 2,500 MW of new solar. Beyond 2032, the plan also includes an additional approximately 1,100 MW of renewables.