How Zitara Helped NYPA and Southern Company Uncover Hidden Risks in a Grid-Scale BESS

The results of a milestone Safety & Reliability Pilot have just been released. 

Through EPRI’s Incubatenergy Labs program, Zitara partnered with the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and Southern Company to analyze 14 months of operational data from NYPA’s 20MW/20MWh North Country Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). 

The results were eye-opening.

Zitara’s platform identified several reliability and performance blind spots that the system’s OEM controls had missed, including:

• Idle losses: Significant discharge losses during periods of inactivity, which were previously undetected by the site’s current sensing.
• Unreliable SoH data: The OEM’s State of Health signals were found to be imprecise, making them inadequate for informed operational decision-making.
• Degradation risks: Recognizing operational patterns that would accelerate wear if left unaddressed.

Zitara’s analysis offered concrete recommendations: improve historization of cell-level data, adjust operational practices to reduce degradation, and add edge-level monitoring to enhance observability. These changes would reduce energy losses, improve safety, and increase revenue.

As Steven Wilkie, Director of Research and Development at NYPA put it:

"Insights from Zitara's solution have helped NYPA better understand the operational performance and current state of health of the North Country Energy Storage project as well as the limitations of the data reported by the existing monitoring system."

Kieran Claffey, a Senior Research Engineer at Southern Company, concurred, stating: 

“The body of work revealed the potential benefits of machine-learning battery analytics on safety and overall system performance. Zitara demonstrated opportunities to enhance availability, improve performance, and operate the battery in a manner that minimized battery degradation. This has helped increase visibility into the battery system's state of health."

Read the case study summary here, and contact us here or at hello@zitara.com to learn more about how Zitara’s edge-level monitoring and high-fidelity diagnostics can optimize your BESS for better performance, more longevity, and greater profitability.