The Jamaica Public Service Company or JPSCO has announced beginning the construction of a new hybrid storage facility at a groundbreaking event at the Hunts Bay Power Plant Substation. This storage facility is said to provide spinning reserve power the the country’s grid. This new hybrid facility will be the first of its kind creating new opportunities in the Caribbean. Construction of this facility will be completed by April of the year 2019.
“The energy storage solution will have power readily available, in the event that solar and wind renewable systems suddenly lose power due to cloud cover, reduced wind or other interruptions,” JPS said in a release “The project involves constructing a 24.5-megawatt facility, which will be a combination of low-speed flywheels and containerised lithium-ion batteries.”
The JPSCO storage facility being constructed will cost around $21.6 million to complete. It will feature a combination of flywheel storage and lithium-ion batteries that will give this structure a storage capacity of over 24 MW. A backup power grid will also be put into place. The Swiss headquartered ABB will be providing solar and wind generators for the project.
“This is one of the most significant projects to be undertaken by JPS this year,” said Emanuel DaRosa, president and CEO of JPSCO “This project will be a model for other countries in the Caribbean and even outside of this region. ABB’s innovative technology will enable us to leverage clean renewables into our energy mix while securing grid stability and ensuring reliable power supply to consumers.”
Microgrid systems are bringing together storage with solar and other forms of renewable energies to the Caribbean region and the surrounding areas since they cannot easily connect to larger power grids. In December of 2017 Curacao, a Dutch island, announced new solar and storage projects while just a year before a 450 kW smart grid project was started in Haiti.