Stanton Battery Energy Storage System
Stanton, California
BEST PROJECT
Sent by: BEI Construction Inc.
Owner: Wellhead Electric Co./W Power LLC
Main design company: Energy Vault Holdings Inc.
General contractor: BEI Construction Inc.
One of Southern California’s largest energy storage systems is now up and running, providing clean energy and improved grid resiliency to Southwest Los Angeles. The 68.8 MW/275.2 MWh Stanton Battery Energy Storage System (SBESS) was completed on time and on budget in less than five months in August 2023.
In addition to increasing the resilience of the local electricity grid, the SBESS is helping to reduce the overall carbon intensity of the grid. Crews manually installed 15,540 battery modules, each weighing 265 pounds, which required meticulous planning and collaboration. The process involved unpacking and manually loading each module into a rack.
Photo by Jerry Zampino/BEI Construction
Despite the physical demands and scale of the task, the team efficiently charged an average of 486 battery modules per day and completed nearly 1,000 electrical terminations per day, all in 32 calendar days and in limited building space of about 50,000 square feet, and in the middle of a record heat wave in July 2023. With a total storage capacity of about 275 MWh, that translated to nearly 6 kWh per square foot.
More than 100 semi-truck deliveries were required to deliver these batteries to the site. Coordinating these deliveries and ensuring that each module was installed and completed correctly required seamless communication and cooperation between the team.
Crews also installed 795 steel H-piles, totaling more than 10,560 linear feet combined, which provide crucial structural support for the project’s battery enclosures and sound wall. This sturdy base will ensure the stability and longevity of the installation.
Despite these challenges over the course of 50,000 hours of work, the project team recorded zero incidents of lost or recordable time. The key safety initiatives that made this possible included daily, weekly and fortnightly meetings, from workplace safety reviews to safety visits and audits. Comprehensive and proactive measures that exceed industry standards helped ensure a safe workplace.
The completion of SBESS with a compressed timeline at a limited site also set a new industry benchmark. The first 68MW discharge test was completed just one day after the final battery was charged, followed by the first successful four-hour discharge test just 114 days after construction began.
