Westinghouse Powers Alaska's Renewable Future

Westinghouse Electric Company announced today the Department of Energy has selected its project to deploy a 1.2 GWh utility-scale long-duration energy storage system in Healy, Alaska in support of planned wind power.

The project represents the largest planned single installation of long-duration energy storage in the United States and will demonstrate how the technology can firm intermittent renewable power at grid scale while also providing local and regional grid resiliency.

“Increasing access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy is one of my top goals as governor. Having an effective and affordable way to store energy has been the choke point for renewable energy technology. By providing long-duration energy storage, this project will help enable us to better utilize the renewable resources that are abundant in Alaska,” stated Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy. “Congratulations to Golden Valley Electric Association and its partners for this significant step toward energy independence for the Railbelt.”

“Westinghouse is dedicated to powering the future with clean energy solutions. Our long-duration energy storage system enables a higher penetration of renewables on the grid to achieve decarbonization goals without sacrificing overall stability,” stated Patrick Fragman, Westinghouse President and CEO. “We thank the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations for this opportunity to showcase a ground-breaking technology.”

“GVEA is pleased that Westinghouse's Long-Duration Energy Storage project has been selected by the DOE and we thank all project participants for their efforts,” stated John Burns, GVEA’s President & CEO. “As a not-for-profit cooperative, GVEA's focus is on providing its members with low-cost and reliable power, while reducing emissions. We are excited about the potential of long duration energy storage and the role it can play in integrating renewable energy not only in Interior Alaska, but the rest of the Railbelt electric system which serves over 80% of Alaska’s population.”

Westinghouse has been advancing long-duration thermal energy storage technology for several years in collaboration with Echogen, a supplier of supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) based technologies. Pumped Thermal Energy Storage from Westinghouse could solve many of the challenges associated with other long-duration energy storage applications, such as lithium-ion batteries, providing 10 or more hours of reliable energy storage with a simple, safe, cost-effective design in a compact footprint, delivering the lowest levelized cost of storage when paired with wind or solar. The system leverages readily available and inexpensive locally sourced materials, such as carbon steel, water and concrete, to enable rapid deployment anywhere around the globe.