As they look to cope with rising demand and support new energy sources, some of the US’s electric co-ops are working on battery storage solutions.
Snapping Shoals, an electric co-op based in Covington, Georgia, working with tech developer Stryten Energy, which is testing its newly developed small vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), which is designed to safely store electricity for up to six hours.
“The state of the electric grid today is evolving every day, and our equipment has to be able to change and respond much quicker than electric systems in the past,” Shaun Mock, CEO of Snapping Shoals, told the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA).
In a report on NRECA’s website, he added: “The holy grail is long-duration energy storage. Having a piece of equipment like a long-duration battery can help stabilise fluctuations and enable us to provide better service and manage costs.”
While VRFB is in use in Australia and China, there are only a handful of such systems in the USA, making the co-op’s pilot significant to advancing the technology, said Stryten vice-president Scott Childers..
“Snapping Shoals has just been a tremendous help to us to take that first step and the second step and start to prove to the world that we need a new technology,” he added.
Related: Iowa co-op power plant designated a National Historic Landmark
Unlike lithium-ion batteries, a VRFB is scalable, with a system of stacks and tanks that can be reconfigured independently to increase the amount of power and storage duration for up to 10 hours. A lithium-ion battery can store electricity for one to four hours and must be fully replaced with a larger one or multiple batteries to increase energy storage capacity.
Another significant difference is that a VRFB can last up to 20 years without losing capacity, while lithium-ion batteries tend to be replaced within four years due to more wear-and-tear with each use.
“This is what co-operative innovation looks like when the grid has no time to wait,” said Jennah Denney, senior programme manager of technology integration at NRECA. “As demand accelerates from growth, electrification and large loads, co-ops are actively testing solutions that can scale, adapt and perform over decades.”
Snapping Shoals sources renewable energy from solar, landfill gas, hydro and wind facilities located across Georgia.
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative is working with Nuvve New Mexico, LLC to operate battery energy storage systems at two of its sites, to provide peak load mitigation and grid resiliency.
The batteries will be configured with grid-forming and black-start capability to support microgrid operation during outages. They will primarily support healthcare operations and adjacent critical facilities, including fire, rescue, and assisted-living facilities.
Kit Carson is busy developing clean energy sources, and is continuing work on its new Questa Hydrogen and Solar Facility, with “major planning, safety, engineering, and environmental progress achieved in 2025”. It says the project is moving toward construction readiness as development continues into 2026.
The US electric co-op sector has been active in developing storage capacity for several years now, with North Carolina’s Electric Cooperatives pioneering a utility-scale energy storage plan in 2022, by coordinating 10 batteries hosted at co-op substations across the state to enhance reliability and manage demand.
In Arizona, Trico Electric Cooperative has developed a number of battery storage sites, beginning with a 15-mW/30-mWh battery system in 2022 at its Chirreon 10-MW solar and battery facility.
Other examples of storage projects include an initiative launched in a 2024 by Bandera Electric Cooperative in Texas, which added affordable battery storage to the options it offers members who subscribe to its Energy Saver programme.
