Projects

Project Highlights

• World’s largest lithium ion battery-based energy storage installation.
• Relay protection coordination studies and settings, integration, meter settings, arc flash study and commissioning.

Electrical Consultants, Inc. (formerly Relay Application Innovation, Inc.) provided technical support for the interconnection, protection, control, and integration requirements of this fast-paced Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project.  Due to a natural gas facility failure, California was predicting a power shortage during peak load conditions. CAISO identified the need for a rapid deployment generation facility.

The Escondido and El Cajon BESS systems were designed and built to solve the problem. Two locations were installed in and connected to the SDG&E electric system at 12kV.  Escondido has three interconnections of 40MW hours each, and El Cajon has a single interconnection of 30MW hours. This project is the world’s largest lithium ion battery-based energy storage installation.

ECI’s scope of work on this project involved the development of the BESS’ protection and integration scheme. This involved close collaboration with SDG&E Engineering and field testing. The integration system connected SDG&E, the BESS power equipment, and the control system together to provide a complete monitoring system. Commissioning was coordinated with the construction so that modular systems could be tested while new ones were being installed, shortening the time necessary to start operation.