Henry Guan, Tim Wilcox, Waylon Clark, and Charlie Hanley from Sandia National Laboratories attended the ribbon cutting event on February 10 for a battery energy storage project in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The project, located at the IBEW Local 995 facility in Baton Rouge, is one of 20 microgrids, called Community Lighthouses, that have been installed around the state of Louisiana. This project was supported by Sandia’s Energy Storage Demonstrations team through the Energy Storage for Resilience Hubs (ES4RH) program. The team provided technical support for project deployment as well as cost share funding for the project. This project is one of seven Lighthouses that Sandia is supporting through the ES4RH program. The event was well attended and had participation from State and local officials (State Senator and State Representative, Mayor, City Council members), Eric Hsieh from DOE Office of Electricity, and local organizations and community members. Press was also present and the event was on the local news. The IBEW facility serves as a critical staging, coordination, and recovery center for linemen during disasters, improving statewide emergency response and grid restoration efforts. The project enhances the facility’s resilience and ability to operate during disasters through use of battery energy and distributed generation. It also demonstrates affordability and cost effectiveness by offsetting site usage when not being used for resilience. The first 17 operational lighthouses have already generated nearly $200k in gross utility savings.
This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity (OE), Energy Storage Division.