December 6, 2024

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Charlotte

NC

United States

LS Energy Solutions (“LS-ES”), a leading provider of grid-connected energy storage solutions, announced today that the company completed a battery energy storage system for Citizens Energy Corporation (“Citizens”) in Greater Boston, integrating a 4.99 MW/15 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) with an energy management system to meet Wellesley Municipal Light Plant (WMLP)’s requirements. The system will be used for WMLP and will significantly benefit their customers in the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts. The project will provide electricity cost savings during annual and monthly peak demand periods along with emergency backup power to essential Town services in the event of a power outage. In commissioning the site, LS-ES enabled the peak shaving, backup power, and ancillary services required by Citizens and WMLP.

Over a twenty-year period, the BESS project is expected to yield more than $8 million in savings for WMLP ratepayers by reducing reliance on expensive peak power. Located adjacent to a WMLP substation, the project has six 20-foot battery containers and six inverter containers. It has the capacity to charge and store more than 20 megawatt-hours of energy during low-cost periods of low energy demand and discharge that energy during higher-cost periods of peak energy demand. The system will dispatch stored energy during peak demand periods to lessen WMLP’s power needs – a critical benefit that will reduce the Town’s power costs. This project directly aligns with the Town of Wellesley’s climate action goals to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The BESS can also serve as a source of backup power for Wellesley’s critical infrastructure should the main grid fail. The LS-ES inverters convert the DC voltage from the batteries into AC voltage that can be used by Wellesley’s town services, enabling the islanding needed to power the town services independent of the primary grid.

“We admire the mission of both Citizens Energy Corporation and the Town of Wellesley to cultivate municipal distributed energy, and we’re proud to have integrated the WMLP BESS for this community,” says Curt Feldman, Vice President at LS Energy Solutions. “Our system solution is ideal for using battery storage to optimize grid energy through peak shaving, lower area electricity costs, and provide a resilient source of backup power.”

“Reducing energy costs with clean power is at the core of our projects, and we’re excited to see Wellesley embrace a BESS that will achieve those goals thanks to LS-ES’s work integrating the battery storage system,” says Steve Bern, Director of Business Development at Citizens Energy Corporation. “We hope that our Wellesley BESS project will serve as an example for other communities looking for ways to reduce energy bills with reliable backup power, and we look forward to working with LS Energy Solutions on future energy storage projects.”

Citizens and WMLP recently hosted a ribbon-cutting event that included state and local representatives, along with members from the project team that consisted of LS-ES, Miller Bros Electric, Schneider Electric, and Newtility.

More information about Citizens Energy Corporation projects can be found at https://citizensenergy.com/. Details about how LS-ES integrates energy storage projects can be found at https://www.ls-es.com/

About LS Energy Solutions
LS Energy Solutions, an LS Group company, is a leading provider of grid-connected energy storage solutions. The company brings over a decade of experience innovating energy storage and related technologies, from the first grid-connected lithium-ion storage system to now having over 1.5 GW and 2.5 GWh deployed across 300 projects. The company offers a flexible range of battery and power electronics systems for front-of-the-meter applications, supported by an advanced global manufacturing and testing infrastructure. LS Energy Solutions is a convenient and competitive one-stop supplier for energy storage, from advanced inverters and associated components to fully integrated all-in-one systems. For more information visit www.ls-es.com.

About Citizens Energy Corporation
Established in 1979 by former U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy II, Citizens Energy Corporation is a non-profit energy company that develops for-profit business ventures to fund charitable assistance programs for low-income households and traditionally marginalized communities. Since its founding, Citizens has provided over $600 million in funding to those in need. With a mission to make life’s basic needs more accessible and affordable, Citizens funds, develops, and builds renewable energy and high-voltage transmission projects that support a just clean-energy transition. It owns and operates America’s largest low-income community solar project in California’s Imperial Valley and is Massachusetts’ largest low-income community solar developer and operator.