The U.S. Army and Ameresco are working together on a 6-MW/6-MWh battery energy storage system at Fort Detrick Army Garrison in Maryland.
The collaboration adds the BESS system to an existing 18.6-MW solar facility (pictured) at Fort Detrick. Ameresco’s Federal Solutions Group is guiding the project from the developer side.
The teams predict that the battery system will add cost savings of $125,000 annually for the government. The Fort Detrick BESS is expected to be completed in early 2023.
“The resiliency of our installations is an important priority for the Army,” said Paul Farnan, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, in a statement. “This BESS aligns with the Army’s Installation Energy and Water Strategic Plan to provide installations with energy resilience, efficiency, and affordability to enhance readiness.
Ameresco and the Army earlier worked together on the 18.6-MW solar site at the fort. Ameresco completed the work in 2016, installing nearly 60,000 solar panels, nine central inverters and transformers, as well as overhead and underground distribution.
That system supplies close to 12 percent of Fort Detrick’s annual electric load requirements. The 6-MWh battery will also provide frequency regulation services to grid system operators in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland.
The installed BESS will be microgrid-ready, allowing for future additions at Fort Detrick. The U.S. Army recently announced a long-term energy plan calling for microgrids at all installations by 2035.
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Fort Detrick is located in Frederick, Maryland. It is home to the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. It includes the Army’s bio-defense Agency –the Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
Fort Detrick is considered a top global research campus for biological agents that require special containment. On the 1,200-acre site it also holds the National Cancer Institute offices for Frederick.
It reopened in 2020 after a year-long closure due to an investigation into alleged breaches of containment
The U.S. Army plans to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2030 (compared to 2005 levels)) and net-zero by 2050.
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(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).
