In a few months, Houston-based Plus Power LLC, is scheduled to begin construction on one of New England’s largest battery storage projects, which will be built on a five acre lot just off Hutcherson Drive in the Gorham Industrial Park. Situated just south of Nappi Distributors’ nearby warehouse facility, the project will consist of 156 tractor trailer-like containers spread across the property. It will be known as the Cross Town Energy Storage Facility. Plus Power considers Cross Town’s location beneficial in a number of ways, including the fact that it is close to CMP’s Mosher’s Corner substation.

After completion in mid-2025, regional grid operator ISO New England will be able to instantly send up to 175 megawatts from the Cross Town facility into the grid whenever the electricity is needed. The enormous storage capacity of Cross Town will be enabled by the 156 containers, which will be filled to capacity with lithium phosphate batteries, similar to how the batteries are set up at Plus Power’s other facilities. Currently, Plus Power has 60 energy storage projects online or in development across the United States and Canada.

The only comparable large battery storage facility in New England is currently planned for Carver, Massachusetts. In Maine the largest battery facilities are currently in Yarmouth (16.7 MW) and Millinocket (20.9 MW) but these are much smaller than Cross Town’s planned 175MW of storage.

Large scale battery facilities are considered essential to Maine, as the state seeks to realize its 2030 climate goals. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable power depends heavily on solar and wind power. The increasing use of large-scale batteries is considered an important part of this transition. For instance, there can be severe power surge problems when wind and solar power plants produce more electricity than the grid needs. Meanwhile, more frequent extreme weather events are adding stress to the power grid, and it is believed battery storage plants like Cross Town can help to counteract this.

Renewable energy (like all electricity) must either be used or stored as soon as it is produced, due to basic physical properties of electricity that affect the reliability of any large-scale power grid. Since the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, and the wind is not always reliable, other sources of electricity are required. Sometimes shortfalls are expected and can be planned for. For instance, the sun sets quite early in late autumn and winter, yet afternoons and early evenings are when people arrive home from work or school and turn on their electric appliances. Currently, natural gas fired power plants are used to provide power at times when renewable sources are inadequate. However, gas powered plants add to the carbon load in the atmosphere.

For these reasons, there is an increasing national trend to build giant battery plants. The plants are sometimes compared to a network of giant electrical storage sponges, which will soak up renewable energy when it’s available, and discharge it when and where it is needed. These facilities also allow the grid to absorb excess wind and solar power energy that might otherwise be wasted on days when it is very sunny or windy.

About 44% of developer requests to connect to the ISO-New England high-voltage grid now involve batteries, compared to 10% just three years ago.

Although fairly rare, fires at battery facilities like Cross Town have been an increasing concern across the country, as three fires at facilities in New York State recently prompted New York to initiate safety reviews, although no one was hurt in these fires.

In a recent interview with the mainemonitor.org news site, regarding Gorham’s fire safety planning, Gorham Fire Chief Ken Fickett said, “We’ll make sure our firefighters know what we’re supposed to do, and not supposed to do.” In the same interview Fickett added that he didn’t think Maine needed the same sort of battery fire safety task force as New York but added that his opinion could change as he learns more about the issue.