PG&E Expands Commitment to Energy Storage

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) strengthened its commitment to a
clean energy future with the presentation of six energy storage
contracts totaling 165 megawatts (MW) to the California Public Utilities
Commission for review and approval on December 1. California’s Energy
Storage Decision requires investor-owned utilities to procure 1,325MW of
storage by 2020. PG&E’s share is 580MW. Since 2015, PG&E has signed
contracts for 79MW of new energy storage capability.

Storage plays an increasingly important role for California energy
companies as they work to achieve the state’s ambitious clean energy
goals. By the end of 2017, PG&E forecasts that about 33 percent of its
retail electric deliveries will come from renewable sources. Energy
storage will help integrate many of those resources, such as wind and
solar, which are intermittent or provide peak output during times of low
demand.

Energy storage has been a part of PG&E’s power mix for decades, starting
with the Helm’s Hydro-electric Facility and continuing with pilot
projects such as the 2MW Battery Storage Pilot at the Vacaville
Substation and the 4MW Yerba Buena Battery Energy Storage System located
on the property of Silicon Valley storage technology company HGST.

On December 1, 2016, PG&E issued a request for offers (RFO) to solicit
proposals for energy storage projects. The projects were required to be
between 1MW and 50MW, and needed to be operational no later than the end
of 2024.

In addition to third-party owned storage offers, PG&E identified a
distribution substation where it would like to consider energy storage
projects on distribution circuits to defer distribution investments.
PG&E also identified three sites where it owns and operates solar
photovoltaic facilities where energy storage could be added.

Martin Wyspianski , PG&E senior director for Energy Portfolio
Procurement and Policy, said he was pleased with the progress PG&E has
made toward meeting California’s renewable energy and storage goals.

“As our clean energy portfolio grows, so does the importance of storage
technology. These contracts and the storage capacity they represent will
help us better integrate our growing renewable generation sources, and
bring increased reliability to the grid. They are an important milestone
in our progress toward a clean energy future,” Wyspianski said.

Over the last 12 months PG&E staff reviewed applications from numerous
vendors interested in participating in the storage market. In seeking
offers for storage projects, PG&E looked for projects which met at least
one of three goals – grid optimization, renewable energy integration and
greenhouse gas reduction.

The six projects selected are Lithium Ion Battery projects. The first
projects are due to come online in November of 2020.

Counterparty Name		Parent Company		Online Date		Connection Point		Term (years)		Size (MW)
Calstor, LLC		EDF Renewable Energy		11/1/2020		Customer (Behind the Retail Meter)		10		10
Cascade Energy Storage, LLC		Enel Green Power		12/1/2022		Transmission		20		25
Diablo Energy Storage, LLC		LS Power		12/1/2021		Transmission		10		50
Kingston Energy Storage, LLC		Enel Green Power		12/1/2023		Transmission		10		50
Sierra Energy Storage, LLC		IHI Power Services/ Enel Green Power		12/1/2023		Transmission		10		10
Tesla, Inc.		Tesla, Inc.		11/1/2021		Distribution		20		20
								Total Capacity (MWs)		165

About PG&E

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco,
with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the
nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171204006159/en/

Source: Business Wire
(December 4, 2017 - 6:30 PM EST)

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