State utility makes announcement about largest energy storage project to date — here's what it could mean for thousands of residents

Good news for Idahoans: The state's battery energy storage system (BESS) is growing after the recent announcement of the largest project yet, Factor This reported. That means a more reliable power grid for residents, even across surges and outages.

The state's utility, Idaho Power Company, is partnering with Prevalon Energy — a spinoff of Mitsubishi Power Americas — for the project, which is slated to be fully operational by 2026. It will store and supply 800 megawatt-hours of power, which is 30% more energy than the state's now second-largest BESS.

Reserves of energy storage are a critical component of an electrical grid. As power is generated, it can surpass the current needs of the grid on any given day. For example, a sunny and windy day may create more solar and wind power than needed. Being able to store that excess power for a rainy day — sometimes literally — can mean the difference between keeping the lights on or losing electricity.

But while energy storage is currently done mostly in pumped-storage hydropower facilities, those are more energy and resource-intensive than the BESS facilities. A study published in the Journal of Energy Storage found that, with the implementation of more BESS facilities, transport and power sectors could cut carbon pollution by 30%, power access could expand to 600 million people currently without it, and 10 million stable jobs will be created worldwide.

For those reasons, the deployment of battery-powered storage facilities is growing in Idaho and beyond. Prevalon Energy, for example, has over 30 projects in the works that will store over 4 gigawatt-hours of power. And last year, storage projects came online in Mississippi, Denmark, Belgium, Texas, and beyond.

And Idaho Power plans to integrate plenty of clean, renewable energy into the mix over the next several years, with over 5,000 megawatts of energy coming from wind and solar over the next 20 years. With the addition of geothermal and hydroelectric power as well, the company has stated that it hopes to provide 100% clean energy to its customers by 2045.