ESS Tech, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement with Portland General Electric (PGE) in Oregon to test and demonstrate the ESS Energy Center™ platform. The Energy Center is the ESS “battery-in-a-building” platform designed for utility-scale, front-of-meter applications that decouples power and storage capacity to enable up to GW-scale projects with variable storage durations ranging up to 12 hours. Its environmentally benign chemistry – composed of iron, salt and water – make this solution one of the easiest to permit, deploy and maintain.

Power (rate of electricity flow) and capacity (total amount of energy held) operate independently, providing the flexibility to use the battery for multiple uses simultaneously. This announcement demonstrates the growing interest in the market for longer-duration energy storage and iron-flow technology specifically. In recent months, ESS has announced projects with many leading global energy companies including Enel Green Power, San Diego Gas and Electric, GRUPO SAESA, SB Energy and others.