Driven by the shutdown of Aliso Canyon, Southern California’s utilities are turning to energy storage developers to get battery projects up and running at a record speed. This week, utilities Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric officially asked the California Public Utilities Commission to approve contracts for more than 50 megawatts’ worth of lithium-ion battery projects. They range in size from 2 megawatts to 20 megawatts, and use lithium-ion batteries, like many other storage projects in the state. But the deadline for getting them up and running — Dec. 31, 2016 — is much tighter than we’ve seen for projects of their size in the past. Learn more about the proposed and planned utility-scale energy storage projects here from Greentech Media.