Flexgen is available for lithium battery storage at the largest solar power station in Texas

Los Angeles-based battery maker FlexGen will provide grid-scale lithium storage batteries for the Upton2 solar power plant in Vistra Energy in western Texas, which can provide more than four hours of electricity at 10 megawatts per hour. A megawatt can provide electricity to 200 Texas households in the summer.

The Upton2 solar power plant, with a capacity of 180 megawatts, was online on June 1 and is the largest solar power plant in the state.

Josh Preeher, chief executive of FlexGen, said the battery system would be installed in 40 container-sized boxes at the site, which had been operational since May. Batteries are expected to be online by the end of 2018.

Preeher declined to disclose the cost of the energy storage system but said it had reached tens of millions of dollars. For years, FlexGen has been working with the military and oil and gas industries on similar battery systems.

The combination of renewable resources and batteries is not the first in the state. In Ector and Winkler County, Duke Energy's Notrees wind farm was hooked into a 36-megawatt battery system developed by Younicos. The system has been made of lead-acid batteries since 2012 and was recently upgraded to lithium-ion batteries in December.

According to reports from the Texas electric reliability commission or ERCOT, there are at least six storage projects in operation in Texas, and the company oversees the electricity supply of 90 % of the Texas grid.

After receiving a $3 million grant from the Texas Environmental Quality Commission, the utility company CPSENGE in San Antonio plans to connect a 10 megawatt battery system to a 5 megawatt solar farm for more than a year. The facility will be located on the campus of the Southwest Research Institute, said Paul Gold Williams, CEO of CPSENGE.

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