Boston Properties, Inc. and Stem, Inc. have commenced operation of the largest indoor energy storage system in the US, at the Colorado Centre in downtown Santa Monica.
The Colorado Centre is a 1.1 million ft.2 property in the heart of the ‘Silicon Beach’ of Santa Monica. Stem has installed a 3.9 MWh AthenaTM-powered storage system to lower energy bills for eight buildings on the property and increase the sustainability of the local grid.
The company’s platform, Athena, the first AI for customer-sited energy storage, performs real-time energy optimisation to offer automated savings when lowering tenants’ energy bills, while also providing additional capacity to the local utility, Southern California Edison, in the highly-congested West Los Angeles Basin.
“Energy storage will play an increasingly important role in peak demand charge management and the transition to a cleaner, more resilient grid,” said Ben Myers, Director of Sustainability at Boston Properties. “Stem’s turnkey energy storage solution complements our efforts to deliver sustainable real estate solutions that benefit our tenants, shareholders, and the communities we serve.”
The system at Boston Properties’ Colorado Centre joins the world’s largest digitally-connected energy storage network, where Stem will use the systems when idle as flexible assets that smooth variable renewable energy on the electric distribution grid. In fact, the installation is located near other Stem systems on the same portion of the Santa Monica distribution grid, enhancing grid reliability for the ‘Silicon Beach’ neighbourhood.