California Wine Town to Combat Blackouts With Battery and Hydrogen Storage Solutions

A California wine country town that has been plagued by wildfires and blackouts could soon get a backup power supply that is capable of running most of its homes and businesses for two days on batteries and green hydrogen.

Utility giant PG&E Corp. and Energy Vault Holdings Inc. are teaming up to create a microgrid covering most of Calistoga, a small town located at the northern end of Napa Valley. This microgrid would use a mix of lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells running on hydrogen to supply the town with power during disruptions on the region’s electrical grid. Best of all, this microgrid would have no greenhouse gas emissions!

Fuel cells use an electrochemical process to generate electricity, rather than combustion. When fueled by hydrogen, their only emissions are water vapor. Energy Vault will buy the hydrogen from a third-party supplier. The hydrogen will be stripped from water using solar power.

In an effort to prevent wildfires, PG&E and other California utilities have been shutting off power lines in advance of high winds. This has repeatedly affected Calistoga and other nearby towns, with fires posing a threat to their neighborhoods. The hills around Calistoga are covered in charred trees from the 2020 Glass Fire, providing a stark reminder of the dangers posed by these fires.

The new system from Energy Vault will provide protection during public safety shutoffs without resorting to diesel or natural gas generators, said Robert Piconi, the company’s chief executive officer. The system, which can serve 2,000 homes and businesses, will provide carbon-free power in a place ill-suited to a large solar or wind facility, and its batteries will be able to start supplying energy almost instantly when needed. Although the two companies aren’t revealing an exact price, Piconi said in an interview it will be less than $100 million. The project will require the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Piconi said that using nuclear power will be an economical solution to solve use cases that otherwise couldn’t be solved with renewables. This is very exciting to us, as it opens up new possibilities for clean energy.

Energy Vault's original concept used gravity to store large amounts of energy, far more than what lithium-ion batteries are capable of. The system would use electric motors to lift heavy blocks and stack them inside a building. This would be done when electricity is cheap and plentiful, and then the blocks would be lowered to generate electricity when needed. However, this system would not have worked for Calistoga. Piconi said that it would likely require a structure that is 18 to 20 stories tall, which would not have fit in with the low-lying town. Calistoga is home to approximately 50 wineries.

He said that the community would not accept something like that.

Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year and will be completed in 2024.