Construction of the largest long-term storage system for green hydrogen in the USA

The hybrid energy storage system consisting of green hydrogen and batteries is to be able to supply around 2000 customers with electricity for up to 48 hours (293 Mwh of carbon-free energy).

The US company Energy Vault, which offers sustainable energy storage solutions at network level, announced that construction has begun on the already announced deployment of the ultra-long-term energy storage system with green hydrogen and battery storage (BH-ESS) for 293 megawatt-hours (MWh) of available carbon-free energy.
The construction of the BH-ESS, which is being developed for the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in the Northern Californian city of Calistoga, is to be complete by the end of the second quarter of 2024. Once complete, the BH-ESS also known as the Calistoga Resiliency Center is said to then be the first of its kind and the largest project to store green hydrogen in the United States. The battery part of the system will be used to support the creation of a network and black start capability, which is the capability to resume operation after switch-off, regardless of the state of the power grid.
The system is prepared to supply the inner city of Calistoga and surrounding areas with electricity for up to 48 hours, when the power lines which supply the surrounding area need to be switched off for safety reasons due to a high risk of forest fires. The suggestion by PG&E for the system was approved in April 2023 by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUP).
The BH-ESS by Energy Vault will replace traditional diesel generators which are currently used to supply energy to the PG&E microgrid in Calistoga in the case of PSPS events in the region. According to Energy Vault, the project is a significant part of progress towards developing microgrids at the community level and is seen as an important step towards realising the CPUC vision of clean forms of microgrid generation.
Source: Energy Vault