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Josh Pierce, president of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council, at left, with Curt Hildebrand of Hydrostor. Hildebrand shared information about the company’s planned energy storage facility about 25 miles southeast of Tehachapi during the group’s Sept. 7 meeting.
Josh Pierce, president of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council, at left, with Curt Hildebrand of Hydrostor. Hildebrand shared information about the company’s planned energy storage facility about 25 miles southeast of Tehachapi during the group’s Sept. 7 meeting.
Hydrostor, the Canadian company working to build an energy storage facility near Rosamond, is committed to working with the community as it works its way through the permitting process for the largest stand-alone energy storage project in California.
That was the message from Curt Hildebrand, the company’s senior vice president, commercial affairs, who addressed members of the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council on Sept. 7.
Hildebrand, a California native who lives in the Bay Area, said the state needs all the energy it can get.
He said the Willow Rock Energy Storage Center (formerly called Gem Energy Storage Center) proposed to be built on about 70 acres west of Rosamond near Tehachapi-Willow Springs and Sweetser roads — is the company’s flagship project.
The location is about 25 miles southeast of Tehachapi.
The Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage (A-CAES) project will have the ability to produce 500 MW of power and store up to eight hours of energy, he said.
And although Hildebrand said such facilities can be sited almost anywhere, the location near East Kern’s wind and solar installations will allow it to become an important part of the solution to California’s energy needs as it can store surplus energy and return it to the grid.
The project will cost more than a billion dollars, Hildebrand said, noting that Goldman Sachs invested $250 million in the privately held company in January.
“That’s the largest investment in a long-duration energy storage company, anywhere on the planet,” he said.
The California Energy Commission is in charge of permitting the facility and Hildebrand said the company is working closely with the commission and Kern County to meet requirements.
If approved, the company projects that it could be in service by 2028 and that the project would have an estimated peak workforce of 700 jobs during construction, 25 to 40 full-time equivalent jobs during operation and more than $500 million of regional direct and indirect economic impacts.
As described by the commission, Willow Rock would be a nominal 500-megawatt, 4,000 MW-hour, A-CAES facility capable of charging and discharging daily. The facility would compress air into a purpose-built underground cavern, most likely using off-peak, excess, or surplus electricity from the grid. The heat from the air compression process would be captured and stored in an aboveground thermal storage system. The compressed air would then be stored in the cavern under the pressure of a hydrostatic head created by an onsite, above-ground water reservoir.
When electricity is needed by the grid, the compressed air would be released using the hydrostatic head pressure, re-heated using the stored thermal energy, and directed through aboveground turbine-generators to produce electricity.
Willow Rock’s major equipment would consist of five all-electric air compressor trains, five 100-MW air-driven power turbine generators, heat exchangers, thermal heat storage, an underground compressed air storage cavern, an above-ground water reservoir, miscellaneous aboveground support facilities, and a 10.9-mile interconnection to the existing Southern California Edison Whirlwind Substation.
Hildebrand said the design incorporates off-the-shelf components that already exist and that many of the skills already held by Kern County residents working in the energy industry could be put to use at the facility.
More information — and an opportunity to sign up for email updates about the proposed Willow Rock Energy Storage Center — is available on the CEC website at bit.ly/3COKgdk.
Claudia Elliott is a freelance journalist and former editor of the Tehachapi News. She lives in Tehachapi and can be reached by email: claudia@claudiaelliott.net.
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