United States – Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) has shown off the world’s largest solar-powered battery.
FPL lit up the night sky with lights and drones during a commissioning ceremony. The new FPL Manatee Energy Storage Center, a world-record breaking solar battery, was the source of the show.
Customers will be able to enjoy the benefits of solar even when the sun isn’t shining, like at night or on a cloudy day. The new battery, which is the world’s largest battery when it comes to generating output and the world’s largest solar-powered battery when it comes to both total output and capacity per hour, is now up and running. In times when the sun is shining the most, the battery system will store extra solar energy made by the existing Manatee Solar Energy Center and give that extra power to the grid when it’s needed the most, like when it’s dark. FPL will be able to use energy from the battery when there is a lot of demand for electricity, which will help cut down on pollution and save customers money by not having to run other power plants.
The Manatee Energy Storage Center is made up of 132 energy storage containers, organized across a 40-acre plot of land, equivalent to 30 football fields. The battery has a 409-MW capacity and can deliver 900 MWh of energy – the equivalent of 100 million iPhone batteries, or enough energy to power approximately 329,000 homes for more than two hours.
