New investors joining them were Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, mining giant Rio Tinto, chemicals firm SABIC, Saudi Aramco’s investment arm Aramco Ventures, investors SDCL Energy Efficiency Income Trust (SEEIT) and individual John Doerr.

Rondo’s product is a refractory brick that can be heated to as high as 1500°C (2732°F) and retains the heat to then be used either in heat form or for conversion back to electricity. The heat can be discharged over durations that span hours or days.

As part of the deal, Rio Tinto, Aramco Ventures, SABIC, SCG, TITAN, and SEEIT all joined Rondo’s Strategic Investor Advisory Board.

“We are honoured and excited by this opportunity to go faster by working with these leaders. Our Strategic Investor Advisory Board will help Rondo focus on the simplest, fastest ways to power their operations with low-cost clean energy and shape our priorities for ongoing research and development.” said John O’Donnell, CEO of Rondo Energy.

Industry accounts for a substantial chunk of global greenhouse gas emissions, with figures varying but it could be as high as 36% according to Rondo’s media release which called the electrification of industrial heat “the next trillion dollar market”.

The fundraise from Rondo comes a few months after it announced plans to build a production facility to manufacture its technology with an eventual annual capacity of up to 90GWh, it claimed.

The thermal energy storage sector has received a lot of interest in recent weeks. Last week, Energy-Storage.news reported on two other technology providers Kraftblock and MGA Thermal raising a combined US$27 million to commercialise their technology.

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Numerous ESS companies have used them as a route to going public but the most high-profile have been gravity-based energy storage firm Energy Vault, zinc-hybrid battery firm Eos Energy Enterprises, iron-flow battery firm ESS Inc and lithium-ion ESS system integrator Stem Inc.

However, as Energy-Storage.news shows in the infographics above and below, the four have severely underperformed since going becoming publicly listed via a SPAC merger, with their share prices down by an average of c.80% at the time of writing.

This led one source we spoke to to call them an “unmitigated disaster for investors.”

Below are the companies’ weekly closing share prices starting on the Monday after the mergers were completed through to the time of writing (15 August). Eos is on the NASDAQ while Energy Vault, ESS Inc and Stem Inc are on the NYSE, so we’ve included the latter’s index as a reference (itself divided by 1000 in order to be able to compare it).

Hover over a line to track the company or NYSE index over time.

The four companies’ long-term outlook is bright, with proprietary technology and software offerings positioning themselves well to take advantage of market tailwinds only furthered boosted by the US Inflation Reduction Act.

However, their financial performance has lagged behind forecasts given during analyst presentations around the time of their SPAC listings. Energy-Storage.news looked at this in some detail earlier this year and their latest revenue figures compared to their previous forecasts are summarised in the table below.

This underperformance ultimately has much more to do with the companies’ suitability or timing for SPAC listings rather than their underlying business case and model, which is fundamentally strong.

Ultimately, the demand for long-duration energy storage has not come as soon as some had hoped. Energy Vault CEO Rob Piconi has told us this was why it had pivoted into short-duration battery energy storage system (BESS) technology in a recent interview.

Energy-Storage.news was not able to find forward forecasts from Stem Inc while ESS Inc has not released updated revenue guidance for 2023. The figures are all in US$ millions and the earlier forecasts can be found in company presentations or stock market filings from ESS Inc, Energy Vault and Eos.

Company2022 forecast revenue2022 actual revenue2023 forecast revenue2023 latest guidanceH1 2023 actual revenueEos Energy Enterprises268.617.9735.530-509.1Energy Vault148146535325-42550ESS Inc370.9300/2.9

It remains to be seen how fast the companies can scale up and achieve the forecasts they made around the time of their listing.

The SPAC trend is not yet over either, with energy storage and energy management solutions provider Electriq Power and battery technology company Dragonfly Energy Corp recently going public via SPAC deals.

Vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) firm CellCube is also now partially owned by a SPAC, along with mining firm Bushveld Minerals, after a series of complicated transactions covered by Energy-Storage.news.

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Alinta Energy said yesterday that it will build a 100MW/200MWh (2-hour duration) BESS at Wagerup Power Station, a dual-fired 380MW gas and distillate generation facility which acts as peaking capacity to Western Australia’s power grid, the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).

The site is about 120km from Perth, and construction is set to commence “immediately,” Alinta said, with commissioning scheduled to begin in the second half of 2024. The project will be connected to existing high voltage transmission infrastructure at Wagerup Power Station.

The appointment of key contractors Shanghai Electric Power Design Institute (SEPD) Australia, a local subsidiary of SEPD, which is in turn owned by Power Construction Corporation of China (POWERCHINA), and Australian solar PV and battery provider Sunterra, was also announced.

Western Australia is home to a thriving mining and metals industry centred around the Pilbara, driving strong demand for electricity, while at the same time, the SWIS is a self-contained grid without interconnection to other states’ grids.

It is outside of the National Electricity Market (NEM) which covers much of the more populated eastern and southern states in Australia.

All of this means the state is likely to need a significant installed base of energy storage resources in years to come as the transition to renewable and low-carbon energy sources continues and accelerates.

The Western Australian government welcomed the start of commissioning of the first large-scale BESS within its borders in May. Delivered by state-owned utility Synergy in Kwinana, a local government area near Perth, the project is also 100MW/200MWh, and is being followed up with another BESS at the same site, supported through the 2023-2024 state budget which included AU$3 billion of clean energy investments.

Those projects were deemed critical to help Western Australia (WA) integrate high shares of rooftop solar PV into the SWIS by premier Mark McGowan and energy minister Bill Johnston. It appears Alinta Energy’s BESS will instead help the grid cope with industrial and mining loads, although a statement from the company only referred to its applications being to stabilise and backup the grid in southwest WA.

Alinta Energy has been privately owned by Hong Kong-based Chai Tow Fook Enterprises since 2017. However the owner is reported to have been looking to offload its investment for just over a year, with all of its assets in the Pilbara part of a sale that has drawn the attention of major investors and mining companies.

Within Western Australia, the utility is currently also building a 35MW/35MWh BESS at a hybrid solar-plus-storage project aimed at helping decarbonise operation of the local iron ore export industry. That asset will also be built at the site of a dual-fired power plant Alinta Energy owns.

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Recurrent Energy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian Solar Inc. focusing on global project development and power services, has secured a 20-year tolling agreement with Arizona Public Service company (APS) for Papago Storage, a 1,200 MWh energy storage project under development in Maricopa County, Ariz. Construction of Papago Storage is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2024 with planned commercial operation in the second quarter of 2025. Once operational, Papago Storage will be the largest standalone energy storage project in Arizona.

The tolling agreement award for Papago Storage comes as Arizona, and states across the U.S., face record electricity demand. The energy storage capacity provided by Papago Storage will complement Arizona’s growing solar energy capacity and will also help the state meet surging electricity demand.

Recurrent Energy is one of the world’s largest and most geographically diversified utility-scale solar and battery storage platforms, with a track record of delivering 9 GW of solar and 3 GWh of battery storage power plants now in operation across six continents. In 2022, Recurrent Energy brought online 2 GWh of energy storage in the U.S., making it one of the largest energy storage developers in the country. 

Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO, Canadian Solar, comments: “This landmark project (Papago Storage) will give Arizonans more renewable energy every day. We look forward to growing our partnerships with APS and other utilities that are adding record amounts of energy storage in their service areas.”

Recurrent Energy began developing Papago Storage in 2016 and will own and operate the facility. Once operational, the project will dispatch enough power for approximately 244,000 homes for four hours every day.

APS is Arizona’s largest and longest-serving electric company, serving more than 1.3 million commercial and residential customers in 11 of Arizona’s 15 counties. The electric company has committed to serving its customers with 100% clean and carbon-free energy by 2050.

Image by vwalakte on Freepik.

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Commercial operation has begun at the new 75 MW Electrify America Solar Glow 1 solar photovoltaic renewable energy generation project in San Bernardino County, Calif. Electrify America Solar Glow 1 is the result of a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with developer Terra-Gen.

The project’s parent company Electrify America is the largest open network of DC fast chargers for electric vehicles in the U.S. to enter into a virtual power purchase agreement for new renewable energy generation. This brand new construction contributes to additionality, by producing new renewable energy that may not otherwise be available.

Electrify America’s Solar Glow 1 is composed of more than 200,000 solar panels and encompasses an area over one square mile. The milestone renewable energy generation solar project is expected to generate 75 MW at peak solar capacity, which is comparable to the power drawn by 500 EVs charging at once at an average speed of 150 kW. The total annual production is projected at 225 GWh.

In 2022, Electrify America powered more than 5 million customer charging sessions or 3.5 times the sessions in 2021. These sessions delivered roughly 173 GWh of electricity, enabling an estimated 493 million miles of electric driving and avoided consumption of roughly 21 million gallons of gasoline.

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Arcadis, a global design and consultancy organization for natural and built assets, will be providing full architectural and engineering design services to solar manufacturer CubicPV for its 10-GW silicon wafer manufacturing facility in the United States. The new wafer campus represents a significant step forward in the onshoring of U.S. solar component manufacturing.

In addition to providing multi-disciplinary engineering, architecture, advanced industrial process design and project management services for the solar manufacturing facility, Arcadis will also engage with key stakeholders of the project, including construction contractors, agencies having jurisdiction and the local community. Arcadis’ experience is playing a critical role in bridging the project scoping and extensive front end engineering design work completed to date and executing the final phase of the design effort.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) represents the largest U.S. investment in clean energy to date and works to decarbonize the economy and respond to climate change. This investment includes the catalyzing of U.S. solar manufacturing and other renewables to meet the demands of the energy transition. For its part, Arcadis has played a strategic role in connecting private manufacturing clients with public sector clients around their decarbonization initiatives. 

“With the initial phases of our engineering and design work complete, we knew we needed a firm of Arcadis’ caliber to carry the work forward and make it U.S. ready,” says David Gustafson, president of Cubic Wafer. “Their familiarity in executing large global projects, industry leadership, solid record in design and consultancy and focus on sustainability were deciding factors during the selection process. It’s an exceptional fit.”

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay.

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During a trip to Milwaukee this week, President Joe Biden stopped at the Ingeteam plant, where he took a tour and spoke briefly. Spain-based Ingeteam, an international company specializing in energy conversion, conducts business in 21 countries. On hand to welcome President Biden were Mark Obradovich, Ingeteam’s director in the U.S., along with other company officials.

Since the opening of Ingeteam’s Milwaukee plant in 2008, the company has manufactured more than 4,000 generators for the wind energy sector and has supplied 2.5 GW of solar and energy storage inverters for the U.S. market. An additional 1.1 GW of awarded contracts for solar and energy storage sector are in execution stages and scheduled to be installed by the end of the first quarter of 2024, totaling over 3.6 GW of utility-scale installed capacity.

Ingeteam expects wind turbine generator orders in the U.S. to double during the next year thanks to incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Biden signed into law one year ago. The passage of the legislation has begun to show a positive and significant impact on the potential growth of the solar, energy storage and electric vehicle chargers’ industry in the U.S. Ingeteam is well-positioned to meet the increasing market demand, which will result in hiring more U.S. workers for high-paying jobs.

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UbiQD Inc., a New Mexico-based nanotechnology company, has entered into a joint development agreement, with First Solar Inc., to further collaborate on developing the potential to incorporate fluorescent quantum dot technology in advanced solar modules. The two companies have been conducting exploratory work since early 2022, and the initial results have supported this more formalized joint-development effort.

Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor nanoparticles that exhibit high-efficiency photoluminescence over a wide range of tunable colors, making them effective at optimizing light spectra. UbiQD has launched several greenhouse products under its UbiGro brand that adjust the spectrum of sunlight to enhance crop growth. Now, the company is engineering these materials for potential applications in utility-scale solar with the goal of significantly increasing the efficiency of current PV technologies.

“As we work towards developing the next generation of photovoltaics, we are exploring a range of enhancements that could allow us to convert more sunlight into energy,” says Markus Gloeckler, CTO, First Solar. “We are interested in the potential use of quantum dots in optimizing the absorption of light and look forward to continuing our work with UbiQD on exploring this possibility.”

Adds Hunter McDaniel, UbiQD CEO: “If successful this application in solar modules will be a perfect example of the broad applicability of our core technology. With emerging applications in food and energy, these novel nanomaterials are proving to be a key tool in humanity’s urgent response to climate change and further sustainable economic development.”

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The Allen S. King plant has produced electricity since 1958, and through the RFP, Xcel will replace this facility with a renewable project that will contribute to the company’s decarbonisation goals. These targets reducing its carbon emissions by 85% compared to 2005 levels by 2030, and retiring all of its coal-fired power plants by the same year.

The proposed solar project will also have a larger capacity than the soon-to-be retired coal plant, which boasts a capacity of 598MW, as the utility looks to not only replace its fossil fuel capacity with renewables, but increase its total power output.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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Although not specified in the announcement, a tolling arrangement would likely see Recurrent Energy build, own and operate the project but exclusively provide its energy to APS, similar to a tolling agreement the utility signed with Strata Clean Energy for a similar sized project earlier this year.

Papago is expected to begin construction in the third quarter of 2024 for a commercial operation date (COD) in the second quarter of 2025.

The companies did not reveal the MW power of the project, but other energy storage projects of that scale in the state have been 4-hour systems, including Strata’s and one from Longroad Energy.

Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and CEO, Canadian Solar said: “This landmark project – Papago Storage – will give Arizonans more renewable energy every day. Recurrent Energy is delighted that Arizona Public Service selected Papago Storage via its rigorous competitive procurement process to support its 1.3 million customers’ growing need for affordable and reliable energy storage, and we look forward to growing our partnerships with APS and other utilities that are adding record amounts of energy storage in their service areas.”

The deal comes out of APS’s All Resource RFP (request for proposal) conducted in May 2022, which sought 1-1.5 GW of resources of which 800 MW would be renewable energy.

Canadian Solar is mainly known for its PV module activity but has been expanded in energy storage substantially in the last few years. It expects to deploy 1.8-2GWh of projects this year, which would have been higher had it not been for a transition over to a proprietary battery energy storage system (BESS) product.

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