Utility Scale Battery Will Help VEC Shave Peaks, Soak up Renewable Energy

VEC, in partnership with project partners, has commissioned a second utility scale battery in our territory to make it easier to utilize renewable energy and reduce the cost to provide power to VEC members during peak demand times.

The battery project is the second that VEC has been involved with. The first, located in Hinesburg, was commissioned in 2019. The battery project in North Troy – a joint effort among VEC, Green Mountain Power and Hydro-Quebec subsidiary EVLO – consists of sixteen white shipping-container-like boxes. The 3-megawatt battery project can store enough energy to power 600 homes for a day.

The battery is located in in a unique location in Vermont, known in the local utility sector as the Sheffield-Highgate Export Interface, where sometimes there is more renewable energy produced than there is capacity to either use locally or to export. Part of the role of this new battery is to soak up that energy for use at a later time. The battery can also supply energy to the VEC system during peak demand times – when the cost to purchase power on the open market and transmit it to VEC members is expensive. This enables VEC to save money.