Energy Vault's 57-MW Cross Trails Battery Storage System Discharging into ERCOT

    June 13, 2025
    The two-hour-duration Cross Trails BESS is supported by a 10-year offtake agreement with AI-enabled power marketer Gridmatic. The offtake agreement is the first physically settled revenue floor contract signed for a battery storage system in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas grid.
    Image of Cross Trails Battery Storage System credit Energy Vault/Business Wire
    Image of Cross Trails Battery Storage System credit Energy Vault/Business Wire

    Texas ranks a distant second to California in battery storage installed capacity, but the Lone Star State is deploying projects to catch up fast.

    Energy Vault Holdings announced it has started commercial operation of its 57-MW Cross Trails Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in Scurry County. The two-hour-duration Cross Trails BESS is supported by a 10-year offtake agreement with AI-enabled power marketer Gridmatic.

    The offtake agreement is the first physically settled revenue floor contract signed for a battery storage system in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid system. Cross Trails will provide energy and ancillary services to support renewable energy production and grid resiliency within ERCOT, including participating in Day Ahead Energy Trading.

    “This milestone demonstrates the unique ability of the Energy Vault team to execute complex energy storage deployments with speed, quality, and attractive economics,” said Marco Terruzzin, Chief Revenue Officer, Energy Vault, in a statement. “Completing Cross Trails ahead of schedule and achieving ERCOT certification early is a testament to our team’s expertise and the commitment of the entire leadership team to delivering long-term, sustainable shareholder value under the ‘Own & Operate’ growth strategy announced in 2024.”

    A new report by ERCOT indicates that close to 12 GW of battery installed discharge capacity was available earlier this week. The maximum energy storage resource discharge generation topped 4 GW, according to ERCOT.

    Texas ranks second to California in both solar and energy storage installed capacity, but leads wind power by a large margin. The state legislature recently signed off on adding close to $1.8 billion in funding for distributed energy projects, such as microgrids, connecting renewable and battery storage assets.

    Nationwide, earlier this year a research report by the American Clean Power Association and Wood Mackenzie indicated that commercial, industrial and community-scale developers added more than 145 MW of battery storage installation to support energy projects in 2024. Overall, the U.S. installed close to 12 GW in new battery storage systems last year, according to the ACP report.

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    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.