Former mill in Lincoln could be the site of world's largest 'battery' for storing power
Rendering / Courtesy Form Energy
This rendering depicts a 56 megawatt Form Energy system.
A utility-scale battery system, proposed for construction at the Lincoln Technology Park in Lincoln, would handle 85 megawatts of electricity and be able to continuously discharge energy for up to four days at a time.
The plant would be the world’s largest system for discharging electricity over multiple days, according to a news release, and would play a key role storing the growing amounts of power produced by renewable sources.
The project is part of a regional proposal, by a group called Power Up New England, that was awarded $389 million, toward a total project cost of nearly $900 million, from the U.S. Department of Energy through its Grid Innovation Program.
Power Up, led by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, brings together New England states, ISO New England, public utilities and an emerging technology developer called Form Energy, in Somerville, Mass., to deploy electric grid technologies across the region.
As part of the overall U.S. Department of Energy award, Maine will receive $147 million to build the battery plant in Lincoln.
The project is still in the proposal stage.
A spokesperson for Form Energy said the company is “looking forward to siting the project in Lincoln” and added, “As with any new energy project, there are a few next steps to take to finalize this. Over the coming weeks and months, we will be working with the Department of Energy and our Power Up New England partners to finalize contract negotiations and with the town of Lincoln and local community groups to prepare the site lease. Following this, the project is subject to regulatory approvals at the local and federal level.”
Iron-air batteries
The multi-day energy storage system would use a utility-scale system of “iron-air” batteries developed by Form, and would have the largest energy capacity of any battery system announced yet in the world, said Mateo Jaramillo, CEO and co-founder.
The project would also be the first of its kind in New England, according to a news release.
Jaramillo added, “We are committed to continuing to work with the state of Maine, local community leaders and the Penobscot Nation to deploy this project in a manner that drives local job growth and addresses the needs of the community.”
The iron-air battery system is Form’s first commercial product, according to the company’s website. It describes the active components of iron-air batteries as “some of the safest, cheapest, and most abundant materials on the planet — low-cost iron, water and air.”
Each individual battery module would be about the size of a washer-dryer set and contain a stack of approximately 50 cells, each about 1 meter tall.
The cells would include iron and air electrodes, the parts of the battery that enable the electrochemical reactions to store and discharge electricity. Each of the cells would be filled with water-based, non-flammable electrolyte, like the electrolyte used in AA batteries. The battery modules would be grouped together in environmentally protected enclosures.
Hundreds of the enclosures would be grouped together in modular megawatt-scale power blocks.
"Energy storage is the key to fully unlocking the immense potential of renewable energy, and improving the resiliency of Maine's power grid," said U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine.
Clean energy transition
Lincoln Technology Park is on the former site of the Lincoln Pulp and Tissue Mill, which closed in 2015.
“This award will enable us to welcome cutting-edge technology that supports our town, our state and our region by creating jobs, strengthening the electrical grid and enabling the delivery of clean, reliable energy to power homes and businesses,” said Richard Bronson, Lincoln’s town manager.
The project would strengthen the transmission system to support the delivery of high loads of power from renewables, including nearby onshore wind turbines.
In addition to the battery plant, the transmission and storage project would include new and upgraded points of interconnection for offshore wind.
Extreme weather events fueled by climate change will strain the nation's aging transmission systems, said Maria Robinson, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office.
The state of Maine has a goal to install 400 megawatts of energy storage by the end of 2030.
Labor agreement
Maine’s building and construction unions said they applaud the project, which includes a project labor agreement between the Maine Building and Construction Trades Council and the developer on the construction of the project.
Project labor agreements are pre-hire collective bargaining agreements with contractors that establish labor and wage standards for construction projects.
The council said the project would create good union jobs in Maine and across the region.
Iron v. lithium
Another utility-scale battery storage project broke ground in Gorham earlier this year.
Plus Power, based in Texas, broke ground on its Cross Town Energy Storage project on roughly five acres in Gorham Industrial Park and adjacent to Central Maine Power’s 115-kilovolt Moshers substation. The 175-megawatt battery storage project is expected to provide energy and capacity services to the New England grid, with the goal of enhancing grid reliability and accelerating the integration of readily available renewable energy.
The project will utilize 156 energy storage containers that consist of arrays of interconnected lithium-ion battery cells inside rectangular housing units that are about the size of a shipping container.
According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute in Washington, D.C., lithium-ion batteries provide storage for the grid for about four hours.
Iron-air batteries can store 100 hours of energy.
Park development
Last year, the town of Lincoln signed a lease with Biofine Developments Northeast — a subsidiary of Brookline, Mass.-based Biofine Technologies Inc. — to build a biorefinery plant at Lincoln Technology Park.
The town’s redevelopment goals at the park over the coming decade are to attract six new technology businesses that directly create 700 new jobs, $75 million in annual wages and benefits and $5 million in annual property taxes to the town.
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