2021 Top 500 Sourcebook: Backup Power for Texas
Battery storage units will provide needed grid reliability
Construction team installs one of three planned systems to reduce rolling blackout risk in Texas.
Photo courtesy Burns & McDonnell
A team bringing three large-scale battery storage systems to West Texas has tapped Burns & McDonnell to take the lead on the project, which would provide backup energy for the state’s power supply and reduce the likelihood of rolling blackouts.
Project developers LG Energy Solution and Sustainable Environmental Renewable Capital Partners in May awarded the firm a contract for project engineering, procurement and construction services for a 10-MW- to 20-MW hour standalone lithium ion battery energy storage system at three facilities the firms did not identify.
Burns & McDonnell subsidiary Ref-Chem will complete construction and battery installation. The storage systems will provide reliable renewable energy reserves. The batteries will be able to store up to 10 MW of electricity for two hours and then discharge power back to the grid during shortages, while also providing support when supply and demand fluctuates. Construction will be underway through August.
Kiewit
Long Ridge Energy Terminal
Kiewit Power Constructors Co. will complete by fall the retrofit of a 485-MW combined-cycle power plant that would provide industrial power to the Ohio River Valley. The Long Ridge Energy Terminal in Hannibal, Ohio, would run on a blend of natural gas and carbon-free hydrogen. Kiewit is providing engineering, procurement and construction for the project, and Black & Veatch is engineering the hydrogen and natural gas integration.
The $588-million project is a collaboration between Long Ridge Energy Generation, GE Power and New Fortress Energy.
Bechtel
Cutlass Solar Project
Bechtel was awarded in April the engineering, procurement and construction of a Texas solar farm designed to power 15,000 homes. After working with Bechtel Enterprises to develop its Cutlass Solar Project in Fort Bend, Advanced Power awarded the EPC contract to Bechtel for the project. Using solar photovoltaic energy, the Cutlass project will add 140 MW of direct current to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas in its Houston Zone. The project will be built on a 700-acre site and will employ over 200 people at its peak. Once commercial operation begins in 2022, the solar farm could save 300,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, the firms say. Bechtel partnered with Advanced Power to develop the project. It is the first renewable energy facility Bechtel will deliver for that firm. They also are building the South Field Energy Facility in Ohio using natural gas.
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Mortenson
Glass Sands Wind Facility
Photo courtesy Mortenson
12%
The record amount of U.S. energy consumed in 2020 that was renewable, about 11.6 quadrillion BTU.
-U.S. Energy Information Administration
Southern Power is acquiring a 118-MW wind farm that the contractor has begun constructing in Oklahoma. The utility is taking over the Glass Sands Wind Facility from Steelhead Americas, a North American arm of European wind technology firm Vestas Wind Systems A/S that developed it. The project, in Murray County, Okla., will be Southern Power’s fifth wind facility in the state. The project is on track to begin commercial operation in the fourth quarter. Glass Sands is expected to use 28 wind turbines manufactured by Vestas. Once operational, the electricity and renewable energy credits that the facility generates will be sold to e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc.
