Electric utility Florida Power & Light is celebrating the starting of what it calls the world’s largest solar-powered battery this week.
The battery storage system at Manatee Solar Energy Center can offer 409 MW of capacity and 900 MWh of duration, FPL said in its announcement. This would be enough electricity to power approximately 329,000 homes for two hours and is equivalent to 100 million iPhone batteries.
FPL celebrating the system with a commissioning ceremony which included a light and drone showed powered by the Manatee Energy Storage Center located with the solar facility.
“It’s been a momentous year for clean energy in Florida – FPL opened the year by formally shutting down its last coal-fired plant in the state and now we’re closing the year by shattering a world record and commissioning the largest solar-powered battery in the world,” said Eric Silagy, FPL president and CEO. “Since embarking on the largest solar expansion in the nation, the company has also installed more than 13 million solar panels and is already 45% of the way toward reaching our ‘30-by-30’ goal to install 30 million solar panels across the state of Florida by 2030.”
The Manatee Energy Storage Center is made up of 132 energy storage containers, organized across a 40-acre plot of land, equivalent to 30 football fields.
The U.S. energy storage sector set another record in 2021’s third quarter with some 3,515 MWh in installation completion, according to Wood Mackenzie and the Energy Storage Association. The non-residential market recorded its best quarter of 2021 so far, with 43.6 MW/92.1-MWh deployed.
In addition to the Manatee Energy Storage Center, FPL continues to execute on a 50 MW battery storage pilot program that comprises eight projects, including a building-sized battery in Miami and innovative microgrids in Riviera Beach and on FIU’s engineering campus.
