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Construction on the Cross Town Energy Storage facility in Gorham, Maine, a battery storage project that ranks among the largest in New England, is scheduled to commence this spring. Maine has been actively advocating for clean energy initiatives including the implementation of battery storage projects as part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a few years ago the state established a target of installing 100,000 heat pumps by 2025.
Large scale batteries play a role in achieving Maine’s climate objectives. This is because the transition from fuels to renewable energy heavily relies on wind power including the use of floating offshore wind farms to drive an electrified economy. Maine is actively pursuing wind energy as its ocean waters are too deep for turbines mounted directly on the seabed making it a trailblazer in floating wind technology in the Gulf of Maine.
Cost of Cross Town Energy Storage facility
This project, valued at over $100 million will consist of 156 containers resembling tractor trailers spread across a five acre area in the Gorham Industrial Park. These containers will be filled with lithium iron phosphate batteries. The construction is being carried out by Plus Power LLC, a Houston based company that already has 60 energy storage projects in progress, throughout the United States and Canada.
When will construction on Cross Town Energy Storage facility be Completed?
From, around mid 2025 the regional grid operator will have the capability to utilize a maximum of 175 megawatts of power from the Cross Town Energy Storage facility. As reported by the Maine Monitor, the Cross Town Energy Storage facility is a part of a growing movement to construct battery plants. These plants aim to store electricity during times of abundance and release it back into the grid when demand surges. Interestingly there has been an increase in developer requests to connect batteries to the ISO New England high voltage grid. In fact 44% of these requests now involve batteries, which’s a substantial rise, from just three years ago when it was only 10%. |
