Portland General Electric procures 75 MW, to-be-built battery storage project in Oregon
Adding non-emitting dispatchable capacity to its transition efforts, Portland General Electric Company (PGE) this week acquired the Evergreen battery energy storage system, a 75 MW facility to be built by Mortenson in Hillsboro, Oregon.
The substation should enter service in 2024 and will be the final piece of PGE’s 2021 Request for Proposal (RFP), which led to several renewable additions to the company’s portfolio. Further, it comes on the heels of 400 MW of other battery project procurements recently announced by PGE, which marked the second-largest commitment to standalone energy storage from a U.S. utility to date.
Combined, the company noted, these efforts will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and position PGE to better meet Oregon’s 2030 clean energy target while maintaining grid consistency.
“From Clearwater to Evergreen, Portland General Electric is building Oregon’s clean energy future,” Maria Pope, PGE president & CEO, said. “Our wind, solar, hydro, and battery storage facilities work together as part of a resilient grid to provide safe and reliable energy while helping us to manage costs.”
Clearwater Wind Farm is a 311 MW project scheduled to begin operations by year’s end – another piece of the same RFP that yielded Evergreen.
Stored energy such as that provided by these battery systems is able to be tapped within seconds to support customers during extreme weather events or high demand periods and generally helps support renewable sources – such as solar and wind – which can vary in overall capability day by day.
“Mortenson is proud to be helping PGE build a clean energy future for their customers by adding energy storage to the grid,” said Brent Bergland, vice president of project development at Mortenson. “Projects like Evergreen enable greater use of renewable energy and are a powerful way to help decarbonize our planet, and our energy storage team is excited to engineer, procure, construct, and deliver a complete world-class facility to PGE.”
