A small municipal utility will be the recipient of what is thought to be one of the first US projects to try out a combination of revenue streams from a storage battery linked to a solar farm.

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Village of Minster, the local utility for Minster, Ohio, is the somewhat unlikely sounding location for the biggest combined solar-plus-storage project to date, according to grid system integrator and storage specialist S&C Electric. S&C has been asked by Chicago-based developer Half Moon Ventures to build a 7MW storage facility linked to a 4.2MW solar power plant.

The 3MWh of lithium-ion batteries will allow Village of Minster to add backup power to its network and help it manage energy demand during peak times more effectively, shaving the peak demand experienced by the local area by using solar power.

At the same time, the device will be used to bid into the PJM frequency regulation market, which has been seen by the worldwide storage industry as an effective example of how energy storage with batteries can be financially rewarded, through competitive tenders, for the fast acting grid-balancing services it can provide. PJM’s service area extends through numerous US states and the company serves more than 60 million people. The local utility will also use the battery system to defer the cost of upgrades to its transmission and distribution networks.

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Read the rest of the story at PV-Tech.org

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