There is a push to transform the energy sector and find ways to generate and deliver power through renewable energy sources. Dominion Energy is building the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. and has solar farms around the state.

However, to transition reliably and effectively requires a critical component sometimes overlooked in the discussion — battery storage.

“Energy is one of the biggest frontiers that the whole nation has to worry about,” said Dr. Dawit Haile, dean of the College of Engineering and Technology at Virginia State University since the fall of 2019.

“It is about climate and focusing on renewable energy,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “Battery storage is one of the cores when you talk about power and energy. While ways of generating solar, hydro

or wind energy are a focus for the future, if you don’t have high-capacity storage or storage that can deliver for a longer duration it will be just useless.”

That is why Dominion Energy Virginia is partnering with the university to develop a battery storage project that would provide backup power to the 6,000-seat VSU Multi-Purpose Center that in October will be the location for the first-ever general election presidential debate to be hosted at an HBCU.

The 1.5-megawatt battery that will be installed on VSU’s Ettrick campus will be manufactured by California-based EnerVenue using a metal-hydrogen technology, a variation of the nickel-hydrogen technology that has been in use in the aerospace industry for nearly a half century.

The VSU pilot project is one several initiatives that were proposed to the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) in September. Two others are planned at the Darbytown Power Station in Henrico County. All of them will test new technologies that may provide alternatives to traditional lithium-ion batteries.

Dominion Energy’s Ellen Jackson has been with the company for 13 years. Just over a year ago she became the company’s electric distribution program manager for distributed energy resources and is overseeing the VSU pilot project.

She said that EnerVenue’s Energy Storage Vessels can discharge energy for up to 10 hours — significantly longer than the average four hours for the lithium-ion batteries mostly in use. They are also capable of storing energy for a long period due to a low self-discharge rate.

“What we’re looking at are different ways that batteries can support the electric grid such as supporting solar and wind when we have intermittent generation,” Ms. Jackson said, noting that batteries can improve reliability and help meet output at peak demand times by discharging energy onto the grid when customers need it most.

Part of the project design will look to set benchmarks and gather data on capacity, state of charge and efficiency in order to test the optimal performance of the batteries, its ability to function in an outage and its success in real life outages.

It also will study what Dominion calls “behind-the-meter” or customer-sited battery storage solutions with a view to developing long-term incentive programs required as part of the 2020 Virginia Clean Economy Act.

“Virginia State University gets to use the battery for backup power support to their facility and, at the same time, that battery will also provide some grid services for Dominion Energy,”

Ms. Jackson said. “This project will help us understand what sort of value does both the customer get and Dominion Energy get from the battery.”

Both she and Dr. Haile add that the VSU pilot project will allow existing curriculum to be expanded to offer more of a focus on power and energy and, once it is in place on campus, provide students the chance to participate in hands-on learning about battery storage systems and microgrid technology.

Additionally, there may be opportunities to offer workforce credentialing and allow for collaborative research with faculty.

Dr. Haile hopes the project can even introduce renewable energies and battery technologies to schoolchildren in the surrounding Petersburg and Chesterfield communities.

“This partnership offers invaluable hands-on experiences for students and workforce development while reinforcing our commitment to innovative research in clean energy technologies,” Dr. Haile said. “We’re thrilled to offer transformative learning experiences and inspire the next generation of STEM leaders.”

If the $14.4 million VSU pilot project is approved by the SCC, it will be built in 2027.