New England's largest standalone energy storage facility in Gorham is on and already improving reliability and stabilizing prices across the region, according to owner Plus Power.
The Cross Town site in the town's industrial park includes more than 150 battery units capable of storing up to 175 megawatts of power, Christina Hoffman, the company's senior director of planning said at a ribbon cutting Wednesday.
The facility collects power from the grid at periods of low consumer demand and can deliver it when electricity is really needed, Hoffman said.
"In so doing it provides the same fully dispatchable services as a conventional power plant but with no water, no emissions and low lighting and noise," Hoffman said.
With the addition of Cross Town, Maine is more than halfway to its goal of installing 400 megawatts of energy storage by 2030, according to the Department of Energy Resources.
Plus Power asset manager Mike Rall said at full capacity the battery can provide continuous power for about two and a half hours, enough to serve around 19,000 homes. But the facility can also turn on at lower levels to help balance electric currents on the grid and make it more reliable, Rall said.
Cross Town is not directly connected to renewable generation. But Rall said periods when it is storing electricity are typically the same time that excess power from wind and solar are flowing onto the regional grid.
"It has nowhere else to go," Rall said. "So during those times we would store it and when it is later in the evening, or sometimes winter in the morning, when there is peak demand that's when we release it to the grid."
