At a press conference today in Alameda County's Santa Rita Jail, Chevron Energy Solutions demonstrated the largest CERTS-based (Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions) micro-grid in the United States. The Alameda County Smart Grid Project was designed and constructed by Chevron Energy Solutions integrating 4 mega-watt-hours (MWh) of BYD energy storage with wind and solar in a closed-loop micro-grid.
A key component in the micro-grid is the BYD's Iron Phosphate battery -- the first rechargeable chemistry that is completely environmentally-friendly. It contains no heavy metals or toxic electrolytes and is capable of meeting strict requirements for reliability, cycle and service life – the expected service life of the Iron-Phosphate batteries is over 25 years. BYD mega-watt-scale energy storage stations are rated at a 91% AC-DC-AC round-trip-efficiency but installed performance is as high as 94% -- setting a new benchmark for the industry.
Micheal Austin, BYD America Vice President who attended the ceremony stated, "BYD has been delighted to see Chevron's leadership in the application of renewable power coupled with environmentally-friendly energy storage. BYD believes that the only way we can make renewables relevant to the grid is through distributed storage, we were very glad Chevron chose the BYD Iron-Phosphate batteries for this 4 MWh system." BYD has supplied more than 60 Mwh in energy storage stations across China.