Today, two of us toured the largest largest lithium ion battery energy storage facility in the U.S. at SDG&E’s Escondido Substation. There are 24 pods, with enough power for 20,000 homes for 4 hours – 30 MW and 120 MWh. For anyone into energy, it’s quite impressive and a big part of the future. Each pod has 800 batteries inside, for a total of 19,200 battery units. The batteries are same as those that go into the BMW i3 and are enough to build over 3,600 BMW i3’s. The most fascinating part was peering in the inside of the pods and the controls (you always see the pod photos, but almost never see the inside). The storage is mostly used to balance the power grid at 4 second intervals and has a ridiculous ramp rate capability of 200 MW/minute (that’s fast acceleration). A big thanks to Leslie Willoughby and Ted Reguly from SDG&E for setting it up.
