Lightshift Energy on June 22 announced six new battery energy storage projects at municipal light departments in Massachusetts.
The projects serve Georgetown, Ipswich, Groton, Princeton, Ashburnham and Marblehead and will add over 23 MW of storage capacity to a portfolio that already includes six operational projects, marking the latest phase of Lightshift’s statewide program.
The six new projects include:
• Georgetown Municipal Light Department: 3 MW
• Ipswich Electric Department: 5 MW
• Groton Electric Light Department (Groton 3): 4 MW
• Princeton Municipal Light Department: 3.5 MW
• Ashburnham Municipal Light Plant: 3 MW
• Marblehead Municipal Light Department: 5MW
Together, the new projects are expected to deliver more than $90 million in lifetime savings for participating utilities and their ratepayers, the company said.
Each battery system charges during off-peak hours when electricity is cheap and discharges during high-demand periods when costs spike, a practice known as peak shaving. Transmission and capacity charges during peak demand events are among the largest drivers of rising electricity rates in Massachusetts, it noted.
By strategically reducing load during these peaks, the batteries directly lower costs for municipal utilities and the communities they serve. By shifting energy from periods of lower demand to periods of peak demand, the system also helps reduce the need for fossil fuel generation when it is most heavily relied upon, Lightshift said.
"Lightshift has developed a portfolio-based model where projects are mobilized together and, in the aggregate, provide a lower cost and larger scale capacity resource to the grid. This approach enables municipal utilities to capture the economies of scale typically available only through much larger individual projects, while delivering faster deployment and greater locational value at the distribution level," the company said.
Key to this effort has been Lightshift’s partnership with the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), the largest provider of asset-owned generation for municipal light departments in New England and a leading public power joint action agency in the US.
By working in close coordination with joint action agencies like MMWEC, Lightshift can maximize deployment across large membership groups to achieve speed, value and cost advantages that aren’t otherwise available in the market.
“While the grid benefits of energy storage are clear and have been shown in the more than ten years MMWEC has been operating storage for member municipal light plants, the development landscape has changed dramatically in Massachusetts,” said MMWEC Chief Development Officer Jason Viadero.
“In addition to leveraging a portfolio-based approach that aggregates buying power, MMWEC and Lightshift have developed a playbook for development, permitting and public engagement with key stakeholders like planning boards, fire and emergency responders and environmental officials," he said. "This helps host utilities navigate the entire process of deploying storage from inception to operation, with minimal burden on their time, while avoiding many of the pitfalls others have seen in trying to develop storage in Massachusetts recently.”
"Massachusetts' municipal utilities have often paved the way on the frontier of grid modernization, and these projects continue that tradition," said Rory Jones, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Lightshift Energy. "What makes this program particularly unique is the portfolio strategy. By developing these projects as a fleet across the state, we’re able to dramatically reduce cost and increase speed to interconnect, maximizing savings, reliability, and market value for participating communities. For municipal utilities looking to rapidly manage rising energy costs and strengthen their systems, this model provides a powerful blueprint."
A seventh project is in construction and will be announced soon, while Ipswich is in the final stages of construction. An additional eight Lightshift projects are in advanced stages of development in the Commonwealth.
Lightshift Energy is a utility-scale energy storage developer, owner, and operator headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Founded in 2019, the company develops standalone energy storage projects that deliver value through advanced analytics and multi-use applications.
Through its portfolio approach, Lightshift blends the benefits of transmission scale capacity with local grid resources through aggregation, maximizing value for utility partners and their customers while investing downstream in communities for their direct benefit.
MMWEC is the Commonwealth’s designated joint action agency for municipal utilities in Massachusetts. Through its enabling state legislation, Chapter 775 of the Acts of 1975, MMWEC became a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
MMWEC’s enabling legislation gave it the unique power to issue tax-exempt revenue bonds to finance electric generating facilities and other projects. Using this statutory authority, MMWEC has issued more than $7 billion in bonds since 1976. It is the largest provider of asset-owned generation for municipal light departments in New England.
