At a special meeting of the California Community Power (CC Power) board on February 25, members of the Joint Powers Agency voted to enter a contract for the 50 MW/400 MWh Goal Line long-duration energy storage project. The lithium-ion battery storage project, developed by Onward Energy, will have eight hours of discharge duration and will be in Escondido, California, with an expected online date of 2025.
“The collaboration of California Community Power members has been a tremendous success as we enter into our second long-duration storage agreement,” said Geof Syphers, CC Power Board Chair and Sonoma Clean Power CEO. “This new contract allows the participating members to meet our state-mandated long-duration storage requirements, showing how CCAs are leading the way to advance clean energy in California.
“Combined with the approval of the Tumbleweed project in January 2022 – the first CC Power long-duration storage contract, the Goal Line contract demonstrates the commitment of member CCAs to confront the reliability needs of the power grid to hit California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030,” said Tim Haines, CC Power Interim General Manager.
“Onward is honored that California Community Power has entrusted us with this important project,” said Steve Doyon, CEO of Onward Energy. “Long-duration storage is an important part of the energy transition, and we are proud that the Goal Line battery storage facility will provide clean, reliable power to CC Power members for years to come.”
The Goal Line project adheres to the long-duration storage enhanced conditions adopted by the CC Power Board. It will be constructed under a Project Labor Agreement, assuring prevailing wages and use of apprenticeship programs.
This joint procurement effort for long-duration energy storage is a continuation of the Oct. 2020 Request for Offers (RFO) seeking to procure cost-effective and viable long-duration storage resources. A subset of CC Power member CCAs issued the RFO before the California Public Utilities Commission Mid-Term Reliability procurement order (Decision 21-06-035). The Goal Line and Tumbleweed contracts will allow the participating CCAs to meet their obligation for the long-duration energy storage requirement mandated by the CPUC.
Participation in the RFO and resulting projects is voluntary for each CC Power member. The participating agencies for the Goal Line project are CleanPowerSF, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, San Jose Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Sonoma Clean Power Authority, and Valley Clean Energy. The governing boards of each participating member will follow their local review and approval processes for the contract and associated agreements for the Goal Line project.
