Core Summary

  • A 30-megawatt microgrid in Lincoln, Nebraska, serving state and local government offices, public safety facilities, and other critical infrastructure, is set to be supported by a 3-megawatt/12-megawatt-hour zinc-based battery, the city's municipal utility announced earlier this month.
  • Lincoln Electric System (LES) said its first grid-scale battery storage project will boost the microgrid's capacity by about 10%. The project will operate alongside a dual-fuel combustion turbine primarily using natural gas, 300 kilowatts of customer-owned solar, and 500 kilowatts of customer-owned thermal energy storage, LES Director of Strategy and Innovation Scott Benson told Utility Dive.
  • Benson said the facility is currently in final commissioning and is expected to begin commercial operation within the coming weeks. The milestone comes amid rapid growth in demand for battery storage and growing interest among U.S. utilities and large users in zinc and other non-lithium battery chemistries.

Deep Dive

Similar to many grid-connected and behind-the-meter batteries, LES said its facility will charge during periods of low energy demand and discharge when loads and electricity prices rise. LES said it will dispatch the battery to shave peak demand, provide operational flexibility, and enhance the value of renewable energy assets, primarily wind, which make up more than half of its generation portfolio.

As part of the Lincoln microgrid, the battery will also provide backup power to the state capitol complex, a federal building, municipal offices, and two public safety facilities, Benson said. The battery is located in a portion of an existing substation in downtown Lincoln.

Like all electric utilities in Nebraska, LES is a publicly owned, nonprofit entity. In 2009, it joined the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), a market that now covers the vast majority of Nebraska.

Benson said LES began studying energy storage in the late 2010s but initially could not identify a pressing need because its system was "very reliable." That changed in 2020 when the downtown Lincoln microgrid came online.

"Suddenly, we saw a potential synergy," he said.

LES issued a request for proposals in late 2021 and ultimately selected battery manufacturer Eos Energy Enterprises. Benson said at the time the project was significantly larger than any battery project Eos had in operation or under construction, though the Pittsburgh-based company has since expanded production and signed gigawatt-scale supply contracts. According to EnergyTech, Eos is supplying batteries totaling at least 100 megawatt-hours for at least two U.S. storage projects: a municipal utility project in Springfield, Missouri, built in two phases totaling 36 megawatts/216 megawatt-hours, which is in the same SPP market as LES; and Frontier Power's 100-megawatt/400-megawatt-hour Redbird project in the Texas ERCOT region.

Benson said Eos's proposal offered the "lowest unit cost" over the contract term and advantages such as chemical stability, which LES believed was beneficial at the site location.

"This battery is essentially non-flammable, which is important because it will be installed in a densely populated urban environment," he said. "Being able to help bring a truly new technology to market and establish it is exciting," he added.

Benson said LES currently has no pressing resource needs and therefore no immediate plans to deploy additional batteries, whether zinc-based or otherwise, with its system's historical peak load around 800 megawatts. But he added that "things can change quickly," as generation assets age, new loads emerge, and market rules evolve.

Similar to the community solar array LES deployed in 2016 and which still operates today, Benson said the microgrid battery will familiarize the utility with a technology that is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of the U.S. power landscape.

"If we were making a resource plan today, there is no doubt batteries would be included in the evaluation," he said.

Correction: This article has been updated to clarify how Lincoln Electric System described the size of the battery selected for its microgrid relative to other Eos batteries.