With Texas set to lead the nation in new power storage generation added to its grid, developers are eyeing the Lone Star State for their projects. Portland, Oregon-based GridStor is the latest to announce its intent to break into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ service area.
GridStor acquired the Evelyn Battery Energy Storage project this week from Moab, Utah-based Balanced Rock Power. GridStor will construct and operate the project, which is located in Galveston County near the Hidden Lakes substation owned by Texas New Mexico Power.
Construction on Evelyn will begin this summer, and the project will go online the following year, the company said. Jason Burwen, GridStor’s vice president of policy and strategy, said faster interconnection times to the Texas grid, compared to other options, were a big incentive for the company.
“Texas benefits from having the closest thing to a pure market in its power sector. When prices signal that it’s valuable to the consumers to have power at peak demand periods, these assets will show up to provide that service,” Burwen said. “Texas battery storage is not in a bubble, it’s in a boom, because the scale of need in Texas is so significant and the fundamentals of the grid are going to require it for some time to come.”
Evelyn is GridStor’s third announced project, following earlier announcements in California. The company plans to have a portfolio of 2 gigawatts across the U.S.
Burwen was unable to share details about the project’s financing. However, GridStor recently closed its first tax credit transferability sale for one of its California projects, tapping into a trend that many Houston-area battery developers are already taking advantage of.
The Evelyn project was originated by Balanced Rock in 2021, and Jack Murray, GridStor’s vice president of mergers and acquisitions, said it had reached a natural stage for GridStor to bring its own financing and operations teams into the mix.
The project is sited within the Houston region to address transmission congestion in the area, according to Murray. GridStor aims to plant new battery generation near urban areas as part of the company’s goal to tackle power congestion issues in similar areas across the country.
“We see [urban need for power] as a really persistent thesis for where power is needed the most and where it is often the most difficult to develop,” Murray said. “There is a locational value of being closest to the problem and helping manage that balance of high penetration outside of metropolitan areas and injecting power close to those load centers when it is most needed.”
GridStor said engineering and procurement had begun for the Evelyn project, but the company is not currently cleared to share any contractor names. The project will employ 100 full-time tradespeople and apprentices during its construction.
Texas power needs are an opportunity for battery developers
Burwen acknowledged that one of the biggest factors driving GridStor’s project development in the Lone Star State is the need for more power generation as both population and demand soars in the ERCOT market.
The Lone Star State has set several demand records in the past year during both the summer and the winter, and state officials have acknowledged the role of renewable resources in preventing rolling blackouts. During a cold snap in January 2024, the grid set a new all-time generation record for solar power.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas is developing market reforms for the grid in the wake of the 2021 winter storm that killed thousands of Texans and left many more without power. GridStor is keeping an eye on the discussions, Burwen said, adding that the inclusion of power storage as a dispatchable resource was a positive note for developers.
“We think [that classification of power storage as dispatchable power] makes sense because the whole concept of the [performance credit mechanism] was to provide some sort of additional value signal to dispatchable resources that make themselves available during the hours of greatest need,” Burwen said.
A February report from the federal Energy Information Administration highlighted Texas and California as the two states set to add the most battery storage capacity in 2024, with an expected 6.4 GW in Texas. The EIA report linked the battery boom in both states with their respective development of wind and solar.
GridStor was founded in 2022 and has received backing from major financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs.
Jishnu Nair
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