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    Potomac Edison installs 500-kW Battery with EV fast-charging in Maryland

    Dec. 15, 2022
    The battery system can provide about eight hours of uninterrupted EV charging and decrease the load on the grid during peak demand times
    Image credit FirstEnergy
    Myersville Battery 940 X 520 2022 639b373165780

    Electric utility Potomac Edison has completed the installation of a battery energy storage system along with one Level 2 electric vehicle (EV) charging station and two direct-current fast chargers (DCFC) in Frederick County, Maryland.

    The company says the paring of the 500-kilowatt (kW) battery with fast chargers will enable it to study how the impact of demand spikes on its electric grids can be minimized with energy storage.

    The $1.4 million system, sited at the Myersville Park and Ride near the Interstate 70 and Route 17 interchange, will be owned and operated by Potomac, which serves about 151,000 customers in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and about 275,000 customers in seven Maryland counties.

    The battery system can provide about eight hours of uninterrupted EV charging and decrease the load on the grid during peak demand times, says Potomac, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy. The charging stations can also be energized with the battery-supplied energy when outages occur.

    The DCFCs at the site can charge most EVs up to 80% within one hour, while the Level 2 charging station allows charging of two vehicles at the same time and provides eight to 24 miles of range per hour of charging.

    “This exciting new energy storage project will provide us with valuable insights as we prepare to maintain and enhance system reliability in the future as electric vehicle adoption increases,” said Linda Moss, President of FirstEnergy's Maryland operations.

    The Myersville project is the first of two battery energy storage projects proposed by Potomac as part of the state's Energy Storage Pilot Program launched in 2019. Under the second project, a 1.75-MW battery energy storage system will be installed in Allegany County. This project is expected to be in service in early 2024 and provide back-up power to more than 1,000 customers during outages.

    The EV charging stations form part of Potomac’s EV Driven pilot program. Through the program, the company plans to deploy a total of 59 charging stations, including 20 fast-charging stations, across its seven-county Maryland territory. The program is aimed at supporting Maryland’s goal to reach 300,000 zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025.

    About the Author

    EnergyTech Staff

    Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

    Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    He can be reached at [email protected]. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.