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'Tenacious' Halifax
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'Band Ourselves Together': How System Councils Help Take On Big Employers

IEC Minutes
December 2022

IEC Minutes
January 2023

Stretched out nearly a mile into the heat and haze of the Southern California desert is Desert Peak Energy Storage. On the site are 459 identical shipping containers stacked floor to ceiling with lithium-ion batteries, enough to provide power to more than 265,000 homes for up to four hours.

John Bzdawka, the Sixth District Business Development international representative, was walking the sandy grounds there recently with four business development colleagues and Ninth District International Representative Micah Mitrosky at the invitation of the contractor, Cupertino Electric, one of the IBEW's largest signatories.

Cupertino wanted the team there in person to see it, and therefore see the future. Storage used to be the cherry on top, the nice thing to have wherever renewables were cheapest and most efficient, like Southern California. No more. Grid-scale storage is ready for its close-up, and it's coming everywhere.

This 400-megawatt project, built by Riverside Local 440, will be the largest battery storage facility in the country, replacing the Crimson Energy Storage project, also built by 440, which claimed the record at 350 MW when it opened in October.

Nearly all of the 5,000 MW of installed grid-scale storage in the U.S. can be found in Local 440's jurisdiction or that of its neighbors, San Bernardino Local 477, Bakersfield Local 428, Fresno Local 100 and San Diego Local 569.

"This Southern California land is the perfect place for storage because it is close to load — power demand — and plenty of sun and wind and land to site it," Bzdawka said. "But projects in other places that were not viable even just a year ago now look like no-brainers. States are demanding it, and the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act are helping it. This work is coming. It's ours if we can man it."

The impact storage can have on IBEW jobs can't be overstated, said Local 440 Business Manager Jim Rush.

Over the last two years, the local has worked on six projects larger than 100 megawatts. Two more are breaking ground this year, including a 640-megawatt project that will be the next record holder when it opens, Rush said.

Primarily in response to the growth in renewable generation, Southern California locals have added well over a thousand new members over the last decade. Local 440 alone has doubled to 1,400 members. And, Mitrosky said, many clean energy projects will combine generation and storage, increasing labor demand for each new project.

Cooper:
Freedom in Union
Noble:
Welcoming Our Vets

Mark MacNichol;
Charles P. Silvernale

Alliance for Retired Americans Helps IBEW Retirees Voice Their Power;
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May 2023

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