Solar PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow has signed a 253MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) contract with Doral Renewable Energy Resources Group, its third in Israel this year.

Sungrow’s energy storage division will supply a 66MW/253MWh – slightly under four hours’ duration – BESS to Doral, an Israel-based renewable energy and environmental infrastructure developer.

The DC-coupled liquid cooled energy storage system – the first in the country according to Sungrow – will be used at Doral’s solar-plus-storage projects. The company is the largest energy storage system (ESS) developer in Israel and has a 1.44GWh pipeline being delivered as part of the government’s Solar Storage I & II tenders.

Yaki Noyman, CEO of Doral Energy said: “With Sungrow’s solution we finalised our procurement needs for PV + Storage Tender number 1 and made a first step working with Sungrow to allow our global storage effort to rely on key suppliers.”

Roni Brandes, Head of Storage, Projects and Procurement of Doral added: “Sungrow’s DC-coupled design as well as the liquid cooled technology present competitive solutions for the PV plus Storage Tenders, making Doral’s hybrid plants a landmark project throughout the region.”

Sungrow says “…the DC-coupled design is streamlined and doesn’t need an additional power conversion system (PCS) and a medium-voltage station, which is cost-saving for the project.”

It is the Heifei, China-headquartered company’s third project announcement in Israel so far this year. Last month, it revealed a 64MWh BESS order at one of the country’s largest power plants to help it lower emissions and improve efficiency. At the turn of the year, it announced a big 430MWh order from Doral’s competitor Enlight Renewable Energy.

Israel is targeting a renewable generation portion for its electricity of 30% by 2030. The 12GW of solar PV needed for that would require 2GW/8GWh of energy storage according to national electricity authority PUA.

It recently concluded two larger solar-plus-storage tenders that Doral referred to, the second in 2020, which totalled 777MW of PV and 3,072MWh of energy storage. Doral was the largest solar PV winner in the second auction, details of which were provided by a PUA representative and consultancy Clean Horizon in a recent Energy-storage.news webinar in late 2020.