Downtown L.A.-based Clean Power Alliance, a community-based renewable energy provider, has been receiving 100 megawatts of capacity from AES Corp.’s Luna Battery Storage Project in Lancaster since early August, the alliance announced last month.
The 15-year contract with Arlington, Virginia-based AES adds new flexible energy-storage capacity to the Clean Power Alliance’s diversified energy portfolio.
The 100 megawatts of electricity, which translates to roughly 400 megawatts per hour, can power roughly 75,000 single-family homes for four hours.
The Clean Power Alliance is a joint powers authority founded in 2017 that serves roughly 3 million people in 30 cities and unincorporated areas in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
It is the state’s largest community choice aggregator; these organizations were authorized under a 2002 state law that allows groups of communities to band together to procure power on behalf of their residents and businesses.
This increased storage capacity made a significant difference during the early September heat wave, providing just enough incremental additional power to allow the vast majority of the state’s residents and businesses to avoid rolling blackouts. (There were a couple of small rolling blackouts in the Bay Area.)
With its August 3 start, the Clean Power Alliance’s battery storage power procurement contract with AES came just four weeks before the beginning of that record-breaking heat wave.
