Liberty New Hampshire is using residential storage systems to create a virtual power plant.
The utility has installed and owns 2,600 kilowatt hours of lithium-ion battery storage at 100 homes in its New Hampshire territory. The Tesla batteries charge overnight when demand and rates are low and are used to reduce peak load during times of high demand, provide battery backup for residents during power outages, and to facilitate customer access to time-of-use rates.
In order to have the batteries serve as a virtual power plant, Liberty-New Hampshire contracted with Caterpillar Inc.’s Distributed Energy Resource Management team, which manages the operation of the batteries by analyzing the energy market and then dispatching power from the batteries to maximize benefits for Liberty and its customers. Caterpillar also provides Liberty with real-time snapshots of battery usage and performance behind the meter.
Caterpillar said its Active Management Platform monitors patterns from the grid and client facilities in order to maximize returns and monetize results without disrupting normal business operations.
The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission approved Liberty-New Hampshire’s pilot project in 2019.
“Our battery storage pilot has confirmed the value of distributed energy resources as a viable option for reducing peak demand and moderating rates for customers,” Heather Tebbetts, director of business planning for Liberty-New Hampshire, said in a statement.
Liberty said the pilot project, the first of its kind in New Hampshire, has saved it more than $180,000 annually through adjusted savings in transmission costs and avoided capacity costs, and participating Liberty-New Hampshire customers have saved an average of $60 in monthly utility costs.
As originally conceived, the pilot project included a second phase that would expand the project by renting an additional 300 batteries in the homes of 150 customers who already have energy storage devices. The status of that phase of the project could not be determined by press time.
Liberty-New Hampshire has about 43,000 electric customers in New Hampshire and is part of Ontario-based Algonquin Power & Utilities’ regulated services group that provides regulated wastewater, water, natural gas and electric utility services to over one million customer connections through operations in North America, Bermuda, and Chile.
