Portland General Electric (PGE) has brought online three new utility-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS), adding 475 MW and over 1.9 GWh of dispatchable capacity to the Portland metro area.
The installations, strategically located in North Portland, Troutdale, and Hillsboro, represent a significant expansion of the utility’s ability to balance renewable energy variability, manage peak demand, and enhance grid resilience.
According to PGE, the combined output of the three lithium-ion systems can power approximately 300,000 homes for four hours during high-demand periods or supply gaps caused by extreme weather or outages.
Two of the new facilities, Seaside (200 MW) in North Portland and Sundial (200 MW) in Troutdale, were developed through PGE’s 2021 All-Source Request for Proposals and awarded to Eolian, L.P. Seaside was built under a fixed-cost Build-Transfer Agreement and entered commercial operation in July 2025, while Sundial—operated by NextEra Energy Resources under a 20-year capacity agreement—has been operational since December 2024. The third, Constable (75 MW) in Hillsboro, was constructed by Mortenson and became operational in late 2024.
Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian, highlighted the infrastructure benefits of siting storage at major substations, which maximizes the use of existing high-voltage transmission lines and avoids costly grid expansion projects.
The latest additions join PGE’s 17 MW Coffee Creek Battery Storage system, completed in 2024, bringing the utility’s total large-scale storage capacity to 492 MW.
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