GridSTAR brought a battery online to help improve the quality and reliability of the electric grid. The battery is part of the new GridSTAR Smart Grid Experience Center being developed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, spearheaded by Penn State and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, the Department of Energy, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The battery uses a special control system to inject or draw energy from the grid based on a signal from a utility. The Experience Center will feature energy storage, a smart grid demonstration home, electric vehicle charging stations and an indoor-outdoor training facility, and will be used to illustrate functioning smart grid technologies for a variety of audiences. Solar Grid Storage LLC will help to manage the new system. In the future the device could be used to help smooth out solar photovoltaic energy produced at the Navy Yard and also to reduce peak demand energy costs.
