A new energy storage system to serve Liberty Utilities’ Olympic Valley residential and commercial customers in the event of an electric outage is proposed for the North Tahoe region.

The Olympic Valley Microgrid Project would leverage state-of-the-art battery storage technology to create a new way to store surplus energy and deliver that stored energy to the utility’s grid. Liberty Utilities has had initial discussions with Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows to explore a potential site on their property, as well as with Tesla, a manufacturer of the type of energy storage system needed to provide more electric reliability in Olympic Valley.

The proposal includes installation of a battery energy storage system of up to 8 megawatts near Gold Coast at mid-mountain.

The system would be owned, operated and maintained by Liberty Utilities, while Squaw Valley Ski Holdings would provide the land to house the battery storage system.

The California Public Utilities Commission and Placer County need to approve the plans.

When demand is high or the upstream energy source is interrupted, the batteries will discharge to provide power to the grid, offsetting purchases from other sources and thereby reducing costs.