By Dave Conway
When the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, renewable energy systems often produce power above what’s needed for immediate use. A key question facing the industry is how to store that energy and leverage it to power homes, businesses and farms when the traditional grid faces an outage.
Green Alternatives takes pride in being on the cutting edge of energy storage technologies. We’ve partnered with Generac and SolarEdge to provide fully integrated solar storage solutions, so our customers can harness the power of banked energy to keep their homes or business running smoothly.
But this technology is also playing out on a broader scale, as major utilities are looking to build battery storage systems to pair with their solar or wind farms. These systems allow a utility company to tap into saved renewable energy in the event of an outage. In some cases across the country, grid-scale battery storage systems are built to power hundreds of thousands of homes for several hours.
Renewable energy experts say storage systems, like the one going in around Fort Wayne, are a big step forward in communities one day being able to rely entirely on solar and wind power. We can’t control the intermittent nature of weather, but we control how we save energy produced by the sun and wind for later use. Essentially, these facilities can replace natural gas “peaker plants.”

Northeastern Rural Electric Membership Cooperative (NREMC) leaders say their new battery storage system could power homes for as much as four hours if transmission service is lost. When energy demand isn’t as high, the batteries are designed to recharge and prepare for peak usage times. The utility also expects the technology will lower utility bills and prevent further rate increases down the line.
That’s good news all around!
The Green Alternatives team is excited for the step NREMC is taking to utilize power produced by green energy sources in an innovative way. Energy storage plays a vital role in the transition to a carbon-free society, and we’re looking forward to seeing the benefits of NREMC’s decision!
Are you considering a move to solar? We can help, no matter how big or small your project is! Green Alternatives designs personalized solar solutions to match the needs of our growing list of customers. We also offer competitive O&M support plans for utility-level sites. No project is too complicated for our trained solar technicians!

Questions? Get in touch!
Reach out to us today by phone at 765-480-4138 or by email at gai@solargai.com.