ect. The firm has worked on large installations
around the world, and Hohenstein trumpets
their transformative potential. “In networks of
all kinds—food, commodities, data— storage is
embedded in part to be a shock absorber be-
tween supply and demand,” he explains. With
the arrival, at long last, of large, grid-connected
batteries, “You can really start to manage that
demand in ways that don’t require you to build
infrastructure that’s hardly ever used.”
But limitations remain. As of now, Ravens-
wood’s cells are slated to be lithium- ion, the
familiar technology already inside your phone
and all those Teslas. At this point in time, the
batteries that are similar in price to the peak-
ers discharge all of their power in about four
hours. But on days of peak demand, that won’t
be enough. “Particularly in New York—and we
expect in other densely populated urban areas—
it’s highly likely that four hours is insufficient,”
says Plummer. In order to provide electricity
for longer and meet the grid’s requirements,
Ravens wood will need to build two 316- megawatt
systems that can run sequentially. But even get-
ting that done will require approval from the
Fire Department of the City of New York, which
has so far eyed the volatility of large batteries
warily. (A 2019 explosion at an installation in
Arizona didn’t help matters any.)
Plummer is undeterred by the technology’s
novelty. Before coming to Ravens wood, he worked
for Ørsted, a Danish renewable energy giant
in the midst of a big push to develop offshore
wind in the waters off the East Coast of the United States, includ-
ing an 880-megawatt deal with the New York Power Authority— an
eye- popping scale by American standards. The enthusiasm of
environment- minded state lawmakers has bolstered both projects.
New York’s climate legislation mandates 3,000 megawatts of grid
storage by 2030, making Ravens wood’s 316 a healthy bite. “The
fact that the state wants to do this is something that we take very
seriously,” Plummer says. His concern isn’t how to get it built tech-
nically or legally, but how to change the system as it exists now to
ensure the plant’s future profits. Not for the first time, bold climate
plans require modest financial risks.THE BIG BATTERIES AREN’T THE FIRST GRAND PLAN
for Ravens wood. When the site was developed in the 1960s, engi-
neers at the Consolidated Edison Company (ConEd) had their eye on
the hot technology of their day: nuclear fission. In an application to
the Atomic Energy Commission, ConEd proposed a million-kilowatt
plant (about three times the size of the proposed batteries) across
the street from a densely populated neighborhood two miles from
Times Square. The city council introduced a bill prohibiting the con-
struction of any atomic-powered generators, but the utility company
pressed on. “Our faith in the future of nuclear power in the New York
City area remains undiminished,” said Chairman Harland C. Forbes.
The design was safe, the company claimed, insisting that its seven-
foot-thick concrete shell could stand up to even a crashing airliner.
Today’s battery plan deserves a parade, it is so palatable in com-
parison. But the larger promise isn’t just a change in how we meet
energy needs on peak days, but rather the gateway to a total re-
thinking of what urban plants like Ravens wood can do. The real
challenge—and the big opportunity—is making the massive storage
system not merely a replacement for the old peakers, but also the
basis for the station to become a hub for the region’s transition to
renewable power. Most notably, New York’s 2019 climate law calls
for the installation of 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind farms by
2035, enough to satisfy roughly one-third of the state’s needs.
Wind is easy to bring ashore to the 8 million people in the Big Apple.
Underwater cables can deliver electricity directly to Ravens wood’s
prime riverfront real estate and already-jumbo grid connections—
without having to traverse the region’s congested transmission lines.
Marine surveys have already begun. The potential is a new kind of
power station. Not merely a place where fossil fuel goes in and elec-
tricity comes out, but something more like a distribution center, with
clean electrons coming in from wind turbines or solar panels, then
stored on-site and dispatched according to needs.
Under that model, batteries can do much more than peakers
ever could. They can help to “synchronize” the grid, ensuring that
supply and demand are precisely equalized—which they can do by
both collecting power and discharging it.FROM LEFT: One of Ravenswood’s
“peakers,” gas-fired generators that
give a boost to the grid when demand
spikes. The sunsetting peakers are
lined up on the station’s asphalt.
THE SWITCH(CONTINUED ON PAGE 129)