The Southern California Public Power Authority says it plans to create the nation's first cost-effective, utility-scale, distributed energy storage project.

Officials said the 53 megawatt project, to be built in collaboration with the Ice Energy Corp., will be designed to help permanently reduce peak electrical demand by shifting as much as 64 gigawatt hours of on-peak electrical consumption to off-peak periods every year, reducing exposure to costly peak power and improving the reliability of the electrical grid.

"By using storage to change how -- and more importantly when -- energy is consumed by air conditioning, we can offset enough peak demand in the region to serve the equivalent of 10,000 homes, said Bill Carnahan, executive director of SCPPA, which deliver electricity to approximately 2 million customers in such California cities as Anaheim, Azusa, Banning, Burbank, Cerritos, Colton, Glendale, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Riverside and Vernon, as well as the Imperial Irrigation District.

Ice Energy of Windsor, Colo., said it delivers distributed energy storage and smart grid solutions for transforming energy system efficiency and improving grid reliability.