This year’s Super Bowl marked a milestone that had nothing to do with the Kansas City Chiefs: Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium was powered exclusively by renewable energy. One of Powin’s utility-scale battery systems helped make this possible by storing solar energy for use after sundown. The Oregon-based firm, which saw $740 million in revenues last year, works with power companies around the world to smooth the transition to clean energy sources. Its Waratah Super Battery, being built near Sydney on the grounds of a decommissioned coal-burning plant, will be one of the world’s largest battery systems when it comes online next year, storing solar and wind power to help shield the region’s more than 8 million residents from outages triggered by severe weather and wildfires. “Energy storage effectively keeps people from having to build new power plants or bring in expensive generators to hit peak times,” CEO Jeff Waters says.
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