General Electric Co. has launched a new energy storage platform aimed at building its foothold in the fast-growing market.
The offering, called Reservoir, will start with a new modular 1.2-MW battery capable of holding a 4-MWh charge, the industrial giant said. The offering integrates General Electric's, or GE's, plant controls, power electronics, battery management systems and electrical balance of plant, GE said.
"GE's Reservoir platform enables cost-effective distribution, storage, and utilization of cleaner, more reliable power where and when it is needed most," GE Power Vice President and Strategic Technology Officer Eric Gebhardt said in a release. "The Reservoir also allows energy providers new degrees of flexibility for more intelligently managing and getting the most out of all their power assets."
The modular system is factory built and tested to decrease project installation time and costs, according to a statement.
On its website, GE said the battery system can be used for a wide variety of applications, including both AC and DC configurations. GE said the battery system can manage renewable energy power project output and dispatch, balance distributed energy resources on a microgrid, or be tied in with natural gas-fired turbines to help provide contingency reserve without fuel burn.
The announcement comes as the company's power division has been struggling, announcing in 2017 that it was cutting 12,000 jobs to adjust to a declining market for fossil fuels-related equipment.
"The energy landscape is undergoing an unprecedented paradigm shift, as the growth of renewables, decentralization of power and digitization create both new challenges and opportunities in how power is generated, transmitted and distributed," said Russell Stokes, president and CEO of GE Power.
The grid-tied energy storage market is expected to boom over the next several years, with one research firm forecasting 15-fold growth through 2023. The technology is also increasingly being developed concurrently with more traditional power technology, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, which recently found that 6,000 MW of battery-backed power plants are in the planning stages.
GE said it has a 20-MW prelaunch commitment for the energy storage units.
