Projects across New York working to incorporate more battery power

NORTH EVANS, N.Y. — Utility costs are increasing as more people struggle to pay them. So what if your energy usage could be streamlined to cut costs?

That’s the idea behind a groundbreaking battery project in New York, which has, for some time, been a costly and difficult process. That could be changing, though.

“All the houses that flow to this area are pumped to the station and then they’re pumped further upstream to be treated,” explained Angela Horton, senior sanitary engineer for the Erie County Division of Sewage Management.

Making sure contents can pump against gravity takes power.

“Say we had a power outage, this would basically cause our sanitary sewers underground to start to overflow and back up into the system and back up into people’s basements,” Horton added.

At the North Creek pumping station, which was built in the late 1970s, the backup to stop a backup was ready for retirement.

“This is our old diesel tank,” she said. “The generator was actually harder to find the parts for, so we were at that point when the generator failed, that we were probably going to have to do something regardless.”

That’s when they turned to battery power.

“Batteries all start with a very small form factor, which is a cylindrical cell. It’s a double-A,” explained Jon Williams, CEO of Viridi. “But in that pack, there’s 4,320 double-As.”

Among the first such projects in the country, it draws on years of development.

“Fifteen years ago, we could make large packs that had a lot of energy, but they weren’t safe,” said Williams. “We adapted it for a safety platform. So if everything in that pack goes wrong, there’s none of that. There’s no smoke, no fire, no gas.”

A combination of the right timing and the right grants allowed this project to come to life.

“It instantaneously kicks on. It sends us alerts, sends it to our technicians and anybody who needs to respond,” said Horton.

Williams says even without incentives, this would pay itself back within four years, needing to be replaced after 20 years at minimum.

“It’s a quiet system […] There’s less maintenance because there’s not a generator on site,” Horton said. “I do see more stations going ahead with this.”

But it’s not just for big projects. Batteries could literally help you keep the lights on at home.

“It will be the largest indoor storage system ever installed in the United States, and it’s in an affordable housing complex,” Williams said about a project in the works.

A system that could work in the pumping station as well would help manage the power, drawing from the grid in off-hours when it’s cheaper. It runs off battery the rest of the time.

“It becomes an energy management system, not just a backup,” Williams said.

It’s a solution he sees being installed across the state over the next 10 years.

“It is significantly more renewable, it’s significantly more climate-friendly, but it’s way more cost-effective than anything we’re doing today,” said Williams. “You can put a battery in for 100th of the cost of running a pole on a wire.”

Details of Viridi’s housing project are still under wraps, but it is a scaling up he sees as a big win for climate goals, both in New York and nationwide.

“It completely addresses all the cost issues, all the constraint issues,” said Williams. “Everything New York is having an issue with today, this answers.”

New York state’s current goal is to have energy storage of six gigawatts by 2030. That would power about two million homes for up to four hours.

To put that all into perspective, Williams says if batteries were put into some of those big commercial buildings we have, you’re looking at 600 kilowatt hours in each.

You’d only need to put that in around 10,000 buildings to reach the state’s goal, a small fraction of the total number of commercial meters we have.