A Texas company is proposing to build a $450 million battery storage system on Milwaukee’s northwest side.
Black Mountain Energy Storage, based in Austin, wants to build the 300-megawatt lithium-ion battery storage system on a portion of a vacant 32-acre site at 6100 N. 84th St.
The battery energy storage system would draw electricity from We Energies’ Granville sub-station next door and store it for when it’s needed during times of peak electric demand.
“We didn’t pick this site just because we happen to like it,” said Brian Randall, an attorney for Black Mountain, at a recent Milwaukee Plan Commission meeting. “We need to be in proximity to a sub-station, which We Energies has already placed here.”
The site would have two components: a collection of battery storage containers, which would include more than 100 metal battery storage system units mounted on concrete pads, according to plan commission documents, and a sub-station, essentially a miniature version of the Granville sub-station, to connect the battery storage containers to the electrical grid.
The benefit to Milwaukee’s electrical grid would include resolving transmission congestion and increasing electric reliability, according to Jackson Hughes, Black Mountain Energy Storage’s manager of development.
“Electricity has different supply and demand points throughout the day,” Hughes explained. “As more and more renewable resources come onto the grid, that intermittent energy source is sometimes not there when it’s needed, so that’s why batteries are there to store the electricity when it’s not as needed and release it when it is needed, say at 5 p.m. when everyone gets home and turns on their AC.”
Ald. Mark Chambers, whose district includes the project site, said the property has been vacant since the 1990s and has sometimes attracted illegal dumping.
The storage system will generate around 250 construction jobs, project organizers said. Once completed, the storage system will not require any on-site jobs, rather it would be monitored remotely 24/7 with periodic check-ins.
The plan commission unanimously approved the proposal last week, a first step in a longer state, regional and federal approval process. Black Mountain anticipates a 12- to 14-month construction period following necessary approvals.
Black Mountain has developed and sold 15 battery storage sites, mostly in Texas, to utilities or investors and has more than 30 projects in the pipeline, according to its website.
