United StatesSalt River Project (SRP), a community-based not-for-profit power utility and the largest electricity provider in the Phoenix metropolitan area of Arizona, teams up with CMBlu Energy (CMBlu) to conduct a pilot project to deploy long-duration energy storage (LDES) in the Phoenix area.
The 5-MW 10-hour-duration project, named Desert Blume, will utilize CMBlu's unique non-lithium technology, Organic SolidFlow. CMBlu will build, own and operate the batteries on behalf of SRP at their Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center in Florence, Arizona.
Organic SolidFlow uses a non-flammable proprietary mixture of solid electrolytes and water-based electrolytes with high energy density and performance. CMBlu introduces that the system is cost-effective, fully recyclable, free of rare metals and housed inside buildings. It can store and deliver energy for 2-3 times longer per cycle than traditional lithium-ion technology, which typically targets a four-hour duration.
According to the companies, the project is designed to store energy for SRP's customers during daytime periods, mainly from Arizona's abundant solar generation, and send back that energy to the grid throughout the night to suffice customers' energy consumption in that period. With the Organic SolidFlow system, the project can store enough energy to power around 1,125 average homes for 10 hours.
Jim Pratt, CEO of Salt River Project, said that this resource storage resource will supplement the company's power system, helping provide stored, clean power for longer periods, especially in times of fluctuating, high energy demand from customers in the region.
It will also be "a helpful addition to SRP's significant number of renewable resources and storage projects, which generally only store energy for up to four hours."
"Desert Blume is a critical project to validate Organic SolidFlow batteries at scale and promote safe, sustainable and secure long-duration energy storage built in the United States," said Ben Kaun, President of CMBlu Energy's US division.
This pilot project is part of an approved third phase of continued development at SRP's Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center. The first phase will add two flexible natural gas turbines, and the second phase will add a utility-scale solar generation facility with a total capacity of up to 55 MW.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will assist in monitoring the performance of this project and help validate the real-world performance of CMBlu's Organic SolidFlow technology in the state's hot and dry climate.
Construction will begin in early 2025, and the facility is expected to go operational in December 2025.
