Eolian Starts Building the Largest PJM Battery at 200 MW and 1.06 GWh in Licking County, Ohio

Energy Storage News Utility-Scale BESS
Marin Holt
August 5, 2026
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6 minutes read

Capacity: 200 MW / 1.06 GWh
Duration: 5.3 hours
Location: Jersey Township, Licking County, Ohio
PJM delivery year: 2027/28

Eolian started construction on Flint Grid, a 200 MW battery storage plant in Jersey Township, Licking County, Ohio. The company announced the groundbreaking on July 29, 2026. The system holds 1.06 GWh and runs for 5.3 hours at full output.

The site sits beside the New Albany data center corridor east of Columbus. Amazon Web Services runs a campus there. Meta and Google have more under construction. Global Infrastructure Partners, a BlackRock company, funds the project. Eolian puts the cost at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Flint Grid cleared the PJM 2027/28 Residual Capacity Auction. It carries more than half of the new battery storage capacity for that delivery year. The year starts June 1, 2027. Eolian calls it the first large-scale battery to qualify for the PJM capacity market. The Ohio Power Siting Board permitted the project as the first grid-scale battery in the state.

Eolian has worked the site since 2018. The company expects commercial operation before the 2027-2028 PJM capacity year starts. Eolian did not name the battery supplier, the inverter supplier, or the construction contractor. It also did not name the interconnection point. Eolian described it only as one of the most critical load-serving substations in the region.

Why It Matters

PJM cleared 134,478.1 MW of unforced capacity in the 2027/28 auction. Gas took 43 percent, nuclear 21 percent, and coal 20 percent. Storage barely registered. One project holds more than half the new battery capacity. That share shows how thin the pipeline runs.

Developers should read the Ohio Power Siting Board approval as the more durable precedent. The board had never permitted a grid-scale battery before this one. Large loads in the corridor now have a siting template. It puts storage next to the demand instead of a multi-year wait for new transmission.

Critical Perspective

While Eolian touts its 200 MW battery as the largest in PJM, this single project’s dominance in the capacity market highlights a concerning lack of broader battery development. This mirrors the early days of solar development where a few large projects dominated before widespread adoption. Given the precedent of Amazon Web Services’ significant energy consumption in the adjacent data center corridor, will this project truly alleviate grid strain or simply become another captive asset for a tech giant?