Energy Storage in Sterling: A Massachusetts Municipal Microgrid

The town of Sterling, Massachusetts is breaking ground on a new clean energy project that will provide vital resiliency and economic benefits.

A 2-megawatt/3.9 megawatt-hour battery storage system at the Sterling Substation will be able to isolate from the main grid in the event of a power outage and provide up to 12 days of emergency backup power to the Sterling police station and dispatch center, a critical facility providing first responder services. In addition to these resilient power benefits, the town will also save on energy costs over the project’s lifespan due to the grid services the batteries will provide. Construction will start in the fall of 2016, and the project is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2016. This project is the first utility-scale energy storage facility in the state, and will be the largest battery installation of its kind in New England.

In this webinar, guest speakers provided an overview of the project implementation process, the storage technology, the project’s economic analysis, timeline, and more. Presentations were followed by a Q&A with the audience.

Panelists:

• Dr. Imre Gyuk, U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
• Sean Hamilton, Sterling Municipal Light Department
• Dan Borneo, Sandia National Laboratories
• Dr. Raymond Byrne, Sandia National Laboratories
• Roger Lin, NEC Energy Solutions
• Scott Reynolds, Reynolds Engineering
• Todd Olinsky-Paul, Clean Energy States Alliance (Moderator)

Read more about this project at: http://bit.ly/Sterling-Overview

The webinar was a presentation of the Energy Storage Technology Advancement Partnership (ESTAP). ESTAP is managed by the Clean Energy States Alliance, and is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity and Sandia National Laboratories.