Facebook’s data centres used 7.17TWh of energy in 2020. Image: Meta.

Microsoft, Meta, which owns Facebook, Fluence and another two dozen energy storage developers and industry actors have formed the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium to assess the emissions reduction of energy storage technologies.

The Consortium’s goal is to both assess and maximise the greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential of electricity storage technologies. As part of this, it will create an open-source methodology to quantify the emissions reduction benefits of grid-connected energy storage projects, verified by third party Verra through its Verified Carbon Standard Program.

The methodology will look at locational marginal emissions, which measures the tonnes of GHG emissions displaced through the charging and discharging of energy storage facilities on the grid at a specific location and point in time.

It hopes this will be a tool to help organisations ‘create credible progress toward their net zero emissions goals,’ a press release said.

Meta is one of three steering committee members along with REsurety, which provides risk management and software products to the buyers and sellers of clean energy, and developer Broad Reach Power.

“We need to decarbonise the grid as quickly as possible, and to do that we need to maximise the emissions impacts of all grid-connected technologies – whether generation, load, hybrid or standalone storage,” says Adam Reeve, SVP of software solutions at REsurety.

The consortium also has 24 advisory committee members coming from the energy storage industry. Amongst these are system integrators Fluence and Stem Inc, developers Jupiter Power and Primergy Solar, asset managers active in the sector including Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and UBS Asset Management, optimiser Habitat Energy and tech giant Microsoft.

Other members are 3Degrees Group, Inc., Akamai Technologies, Clearloop, Equilibrium Energy, General Motors, GlidePath Power Solutions, Hannon Armstrong, Longroad Energy, Marathon Capital, Microsoft, Primergy Solar, RES Group, Rivian, Rowan Digital Infrastructure, Tabors Caramanis Rudkevich, TimberRock and WattTime.

Facebook’s total electricity use, which is 100% powered by renewables, totalled 7.17TWh in 2020 according to its Data Disclosures for that year. The vast majority of this is used by its data centres.

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Image: Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.

The US market is on course to reach 13.5GWh of energy storage installations during 2022, according to Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.

The market research and analysis firm has just issued the Q2 2022 edition of its quarterly US Energy Storage Monitor, produced in partnership with the American Clean Power Association, in which it found that the three-month period saw 3,042.4MWh of storage deployed across the grid-scale, residential and non-residential (commercial, industrial and community) market segments.

In the grid-scale market segment alone, 2,608MWh was installed during the quarter, the highest second quarter figure recorded to date. The Texas market was the single strongest regional contributor to that grid-scale number, with more than 60% of deployments.

This was in spite of various factors that have caused delays to projects around the country in recent months. Back in June, as the firm’s Q1 findings were published, Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac) said that procurement challenges and long interconnection waiting times put project completion dates back by months in many cases.

In Q1, WoodMac said 2,875MWh of storage was deployed across all segments, including 2,339MWh of grid-scale storage – which was also the strongest opening quarter to a year on record.

WoodMac previously said its US deployment forecasts for 2022 had been downgraded by about 30% versus earlier predictions, with one major driver for that being uncertainty around the fate of anti-dumping countervailing duties (AD/CVD) tariffs placed on imported solar modules.

That led solar-plus-storage developers – a significant chunk of the US storage market – to hesitate or delay on procurements. The tariffs are gone for now, since President Joe Biden ordered a two-year pause on them, but the industry continues to “wrestle” with the US’ policy on products associated with forced labour in the Xinjiang region of China, which means some hesitancy is still expected, WoodMac said.

That and other causes of delays such as price spikes for raw materials, components and shipping costs impacted around 1.1GW of large-scale battery storage projects that were expected to come online during Q2 2022. While a significant portion of that number may be cancelled altogether, WoodMac does expect the majority, around 709MW, to still come online during Q3 or Q4.

“Despite impressive growth, the US grid-scale energy storage pipeline continues to face rolling delays into 2023 and beyond,” Wood Mackenzie senior energy storage analyst Vanessa Witte said.

“Supply chain issues, transportation delays and interconnection queue challenges were the main drivers behind delays in the commercial operations date (COD) for many projects.”

Inflation Reduction Act poised to transform an already rapidly-growing market

The firm’s prediction for the full year would represent a big increase on 2021 figures, when about 10.5GWh was deployed in total including 9.2GWh of grid-scale energy storage.

Regular readers of this site will be aware that the recent passing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) legislation in the US is projected to add a considerable upside to an already rapidly growing industry. Chief among its impacts will be the eligibility of standalone energy storage for investment tax credit (ITC) incentives from the end of this year, which many have commented could supercharge the sector by reducing capital expenditure costs on projects by around 30%.

That and other clean energy-friendly measures in the IRA will spur the US on to become a 52.4GWh annual market in 2026 and see cumulative deployment of 191.6GWh of energy storage in the 2022 to 2026 timeframe, according to the firm’s predictions.

Chloe Holden, another Wood Mackenzie analyst who authored the new report, noted that the IRA’s extension of the existing ITC for solar PV would likely have a positive impact on the residential solar-plus-storage market.

The residential sector also had a strong Q2, with 154MW/375MWh of installations, the strongest quarter to date in terms of megawatt-hours.

“The solar ITC extension is good news for the residential storage industry, preventing a drop in residential solar-plus-storage installations that would have otherwise arrived in 2024,” Holden said.

“The standalone storage ITC will also boost storage retrofits on homes with existing solar.”

The non-residential segment struggles to record major growth however, with deployments focused largely in states with supportive policies, like California, New York and Massachusetts. Just 26.3MW/59.4MWh of non-residential deployments figured in WoodMac’s report.

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Neoen-Tesla’s 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery. Image: Victoria State government.

Neoen has proposed building a gigawatt-scale battery storage project in partnership with the community of Collie, Western Australia, a region with close and continuing ties to the coal industry.

France-headquartered developer, owner and operator of renewable energy and energy storage assets Neoen has already delivered Australia’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS) to date, the 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery in the state of Victoria.

It also built the Hornsdale Power Reserve project in South Australia with Tesla, considered a landmark project for large-scale BESS around the world. In reporting its most recent financial results in August, Neoen said that it earned €39.3 million (US$39.3 million) in revenues from its energy storage segment in the first half of 2022, three times higher than in the same period last year.

This was driven by successful market participation of its projects in Australia, with the VBB accounting for the biggest portion of that.

In its application filed with planning authorities in the Shire of Collie, the company said its proposed development will be a 1GW/4GWh BESS facility, built in stages, starting with an initial 200MW/800MWh installation.

Whether it progresses to that total capacity depends on demand for the battery system’s services, with each stage adding 200MW/800MWh of new BESS equipment. It will be connected to the Western Power transmission network.

A power plant at Collie is one of the last two coal-fired power stations in Western Australia that is still owned by the state’s government. The plant is scheduled for closure in 2027, while the other, Muja, will go offline by the end of this decade.

The motivations for doing that are economic as well as environmental and societal. The state government in June said costs of keeping the plants open could add between AU$1,800 (US$1,214.50) to AU$3,000 a year to the average customer’s energy bill every year from AU$3 billion in anticipated losses for Synergy, the state-owned power producer which operates them.

State Premier Mark McGowan and Minister for Mines, Petroleum and Energy Bill Johnston said then that Western Australia would invest around AU$3.8 billion to facilitate an “orderly transition” to renewables and storage. Investments made would largely go towards upgrading and enhancing the South West Interconnected System (SWIS) grid network, the politicians said.

‘Just transition’ for historic coal region

A fund worth more than half a billion dollars is being committed to Collie’s transition, with the area home to coal mines as well as the power plants.

A source close to the company said that the site chosen by Neoen, about 4km away from Collie power plant and 13km away from the town, is an ideal location for battery storage in a region which has been significant for Australia’s energy sector for half a century.

The source noted that the project is in line with the Collie Just Transition Plan formulated and funded by the state government and will bring investment to region, supporting local jobs and businesses.

If the project goes ahead, a programme to share community benefits will also run, in partnership with the Shire of Collie Council.

In April, another developer, ZEN Energy, started feasibility studies for another BESS project in the region, which it said was expected to be 200MW with between 600MWh and 800MWh of capacity. Funding for that study came from the WA government.

That project would supply renewable energy to commercial and industrial (C&I) entities, helping them reduce their exposure to wholesale markets. It would also be a key piece of a Collie Battery and Hydrogen Industrial Hub Project that the state government wants built.

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Chloe Holden

According to Wood Mackenzie, a Verisk business, and the American Clean Power Association’s (ACP) latest U.S. Energy Storage Monitor report, grid-scale storage was boosted by a series of deployments in Texas, with the state contributing 60% of installed capacity this quarter. However, challenges to the sector remain due to delays. The U.S. energy storage market set a new record in the second quarter of 2022, with grid-scale installations totaling 2,608 MWh – the highest installed capacity for any Q2 on record.

“Despite impressive growth, the U.S. grid-scale energy storage pipeline continues to face rolling delays into 2023 and beyond,” says Vanessa Witte, senior analyst with Wood Mackenzie’s energy storage team. “More than 1.1 GW of projects originally scheduled to come online in Q2 were delayed or cancelled, although 61% of this capacity, 709 MW, is still scheduled to come online in Q3 and Q4 of 2022.”

“Supply chain issues, transportation delays and interconnection queue challenges were the main drivers behind delays in the commercial operations date (COD) for many projects,” Witte adds. 

Given the prevalence of hybrid deployment between storage and solar, ongoing trade issues negatively impacting the solar industry contributed to headwinds for energy storage deployment. Namely, the current enforcement of the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), recently enacted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

The U.S. Congress passed a solar investment tax credit (ITC) extension and standalone storage ITC as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. This critical piece of legislation will support all segments of the energy storage industry, increasing deployment of solar-plus-storage systems while also incentivizing standalone facilities. As a result, Wood Mackenzie forecasts 59.2 GW of energy storage capacity to be added through 2026.

“The U.S. energy storage industry is reaching maturity,” comments Jason Burwen, vice president of energy storage at ACP. “Energy storage is now regularly being installed at over a GW per quarter. In addition, Texas overtaking California this quarter should serve as a reminder that generators, customers and grid operators in all geographies are increasingly relying on energy storage. Combined with the tailwinds of newly available tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, the question for investors and grid operators now is not whether to deploy storage, but how much storage to deploy – and how fast.” 

Residential storage also had its strongest quarter to date with 375 MWh installed in Q2, beating the previous quarterly record of 334.1 MWh in Q1 2022. 

Demand is rising in the residential segment with over 150 MW of residential storage installed for the first time, but ongoing supply shortfalls and rising prices have suppressed deployment. New solar installers continue to add storage to their product offerings, despite ongoing procurement issues.

“The solar ITC extension is good news for the residential storage industry, preventing a drop in residential solar-plus-storage installations that would have otherwise arrived in 2024,” says Chloe Holden, research analyst at Wood Mackenzie, and one of the authors of the report. “The standalone storage ITC will also boost storage retrofits on homes with existing solar.”

Community, commercial and industrial (CCI) storage continues to lag behind other market segments, with only 59.4 MWh of CCI storage installations seen this quarter, making it the lowest quarter recorded for MWh capacity since 2019.

“Market players look forward to the emergence of a more diverse market, but current deployment remains limited to a few policy leaders in California, New York and Massachusetts,” Holden continues.

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Canadian Solar Inc.’s CSI Energy Storage, which is part of its majority-owned subsidiary CSI Solar Co. Ltd., is launching SolBank, a proprietary designed and manufactured energy storage battery solution for utility-scale applications. CSI Energy Storage is also expanding its battery manufacturing capacity from the existing 2.5 GWh to 10 GWh by the end of 2023.

The SolBank is a lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) chemistry-based battery enclosure with up to 2,800 kWh of usable energy capacity, specifically engineered for safety and reliability for utility-scale applications. The SolBank is designed with liquid cooling and humidity control, active balancing battery management system (BMS) technologies, and complies with the latest international safety and compliance standards.

CSI Energy Storage currently produces the SolBank at its workshops in Jiangsu Province in China. The current annual battery manufacturing output capacity is 2.5 GWh and is expected to reach 10 GWh by the end of 2023. These workshops include the manufacturing of its own proprietary designed battery modules, packs and containerization with fully automated, state-of-art production lines and testing facilities.

To complement the newly launched SolBank battery solution this, CSI Energy Storage is also providing full commissioning and integration services, turnkey EPC project execution, and long-term operational service and capacity maintenance.

“We are delighted to launch our proprietary battery storage product, the SolBank, which is one of the best in the market in terms of product safety and cost competitiveness,” states Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar. “Our manufacturing capacity in battery storage will spur the continued growth of our battery storage solutions business, which will in turn enhance the synergies with our battery storage project development business. Solar plus battery storage will be one of the key solutions to combat climate change. We look forward to working together with our existing and new partners and contribute to global decarbonization efforts.”

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Eos Znyth battery storage unit on its production line near Pittsburgh. Image: Eos Energy Enterprises via Twitter.

Eos Energy Enterprises has progressed to the due diligence stage in its application for a share of US$2.5 billion in US government loans.

The company manufactures zinc-based battery energy storage systems which offer three hours of storage duration per unit but can be stacked to make longer durations of up to about 12 – 15 hours. Based on an aqueous zinc hybrid cathode that plates and replates zinc as it charges and discharges, Pennsylvania-headquartered Eos claims its products are long life and durable and made using abundant materials.

Eos is in line to reach a targeted annual production capacity of 800MWh by the end of this year, but wants backing for a more ambitious 3GWh target.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) returned to active status shortly after President Joe Biden took office in early 2021, with solar industry veteran and clean energy investor Jigar Shah at the helm.

Eos applied for a loan through the office’s Renewable Energy and Efficient Energy solicitation, through which it could access debt capital, a customised financing arrangement, enter a committed partnership with the LPO, or benefit from direct technical experience provided through the office.

The LPO invited the company to the next step in the process, the final part of the second stage in applying, Eos said yesterday. That means that it has gone through vetting for project risk allocation, creditworthiness, legal, environmental and regulatory factors and more.

Eos’ 3GWh production plan will now undergo LPO’s due diligence process. In discussing the loan earlier this year, Eos CEO Joe Mastrangelo said the company sources 80% of its raw materials domestically – within a five-hour drive of its factory – and aims to go to 90% by the end of this year.

That could aid the company in its push for the loan, with increasing the domestic supply chain for energy storage a stated aim of the US government. Another is to reduce the cost of providing long-duration energy storage (LDES) in support of increasing renewable energy adoption.

In June, the LPO made its first lending commitment in its present-day incarnation, confirming a US$504 million loan to the Advanced Clean Energy Storage (ACES) 300GWh green hydrogen storage hub in Utah.   

Eos received a US$200 million investment commitment in April from an unnamed investor affiliated with the company’s financing partner Yorkville Advisors, and then secured an US$85 million loan facility with Atlas Credit Partners in August.

The battery storage company went public via a SPAC merger in November 2020 and claimed an order backlog worth US$457 million as of the end of Q2 2022 from 1.9GWh of customer orders, including US$258 million of orders booked during the second quarter alone.

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Declan Flanagan

Declan Flanagan, former CEO of Orsted’s onshore business, has launched Bluestar Energy Capital, a new global renewable energy investment platform with an initial $100 million in capital for greenfield renewable energy development. Bluestar, founded by Flanagan, is also announcing several key management hires.

“A huge amount of capital is seeking a role in the energy transition, but a scarcity remains of the right kind of capital for new development platforms and new projects. Our vision is to be one of the largest global investors of early-stage development capital,” comments Flanagan, CEO of Bluestar. “We have structured Bluestar as a portfolio of distinct regional platforms based on the conviction that successful project development is a very local business. Success is about empowering regional leadership while bringing global scale and an owner’s attention to detail in managing project and market risk.”

The initial $100 million raised by Bluestar will fund the execution of the first phase of its business plan. Bluestar’s bedrock strategy is greenfield development and a long-term approach to the infrastructure needed to drive the energy transition to 2030 and beyond. Bluestar will develop regional platforms in the United States, Australia and Europe that will be either wholly owned or controlled subsidiaries. The company’s initial focus is exclusively on project development capital. It will evaluate various options for construction and operating capital in due course.

Flanagan, who will remain the controlling shareholder of Bluestar, is joined by new investors S2G Ventures and Great Bay Renewables. As part of the transaction Aaron Rudberg, COO of S2G, and Frank Getman, CEO of Great Bay, have joined Bluestar’s board of directors. Senan Murphy, former CFO of wind power pioneer Airtricity (sold to SSE and E.On) has also joined Bluestar’s board as a non-executive.

Following the closing of this funding round, the Company has established its first two regional development platforms. Nova Clean Energy LLC is Bluestar’s North American-focused development platform. It is pursuing a greenfield project development plan, as well as opportunistic M&A across wind, solar and storage.

Bluestar Energy Australia is Bluestar’s Australian-focused development platform. Since entering the Australian market, it has already built a pipeline that is focused primarily on wind power, with plans for further additions of solar and storage.

Bluestar has also made several key management hires in recent months. Dennis Meany, former president of Lincoln Clean Energy (sold to Orsted) was named president and board member. Dylan Reeves, former chief commercial and product officer of onshore wind services at GE Renewable Energy, was named head of project delivery. Cortney Zaret, former financial controller at Orsted Onshore was named head of accounting and administration. Joe Condo, former general counsel at Orsted Onshore and Lincoln Clean Energy, was named general counsel.

At Bluestar’s regional platforms, Jenn Goodwillie, former vice president at Orsted Onshore, was named head of development at Nova Clean Energy.

“S2G is thrilled to be working with Declan and the Bluestar team to enable the energy transition,” says Rudberg. “The Bluestar team are proven operators. They understand what the industry needs and are well positioned to capitalize on the growing energy opportunity across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.”

“Declan is a recognized leader in renewables and the global energy transition with an incredible track record of success,” adds Getman. “We are excited to support him and his team in helping create the next great global renewables platform.”

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Todd Michaels

Correlate Infrastructure Partners Inc., an energy optimization and clean energy solutions provider for North America, has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to acquire Aegis Renewable Energy Inc. Aegis is a commercial, industrial and community solar company focused on solar project development and EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) services in the eastern United States and is a member of the Amicus Solar Cooperative Network.

Upon completion, Correlate’s acquisition of Aegis Renewable Energy will provide the company strategic abilities to capitalize on the Northeast renewable energy market. With expertise in simplifying energy optimization and sustainability, Correlate intends to utilize Aegis’ regulatory knowledge, project fulfillment, and operations and maintenance capabilities to deliver on and expand its project backlog in the region.

“Upon completion of this key acquisition, Correlate will add to its highly experienced team and will bring proven success to the Northeast market as a leading renewable energy project developer while creating a compelling fit for expanding Correlate’s energy optimization platform,” states Todd Michaels, Correlate’s CEO and president.

“Our search was focused on finding the best strategic fit to match our growth, culture, diversification and strength of leadership goals,” shares Nils Behn, CEO of Aegis. The acquisition will also conclude a year-long search by Aegis. “After rejecting several offers from other companies, we were approached by Correlate and it became apparent very quickly that they hit the mark on all fronts. We couldn’t be happier with our decision to join their team.”

“This proposed Aegis Renewable Energy acquisition will bolster Correlate’s Northeast presence with a top-notch team that has been successfully executing commercial and community-scale solar energy systems for the past 11 years,” notes Channing Chen, CFO of Correlate. “In addition to a strong regional presence, the team’s capabilities and expertise can be leveraged more broadly to help execute opportunities nationally and align with Correlate’s core values and objectives.”

“We intend to move toward the execution of a definitive acquisition agreement and the closing of the Aegis transaction as soon as due diligence has concluded and closing conditions have been achieved by all parties,” Chen adds.

The proposed acquisition was previously announced on the Form 8-K filing on Aug. 25, 2022. It is currently anticipated to close in Q4 2022.

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BASF Verbund facility in Freeport, Texas

BASF and X-ELIO have signed a 12-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to supply 48 MW of solar power to BASF’s Verbund site in Freeport, Texas. The BASF Freeport site is one of BASF’s six global Verbund sites.

“With this agreement, we take a big step forward, reaching 100 percent of the site’s purchased power to be supplied from renewable energy,” says Brad Morrison, senior vice president and site manager for the BASF site in Freeport. “Securing renewable energy at our Freeport site is a necessary step to improving our energy footprint and we appreciate the partnership with X-ELIO, which helps us realize the company’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.”

X-ELIO’s 72 MW Liberty Solar Photovoltaic project, located in Houston, is expected to be operational by 2024. It will generate 137 GWh of clean energy per year. The project will also include a 60 MW energy storage system.

“This agreement is a major milestone in the development of renewable and sustainable energy for the industrial supply, one of the major objectives to achieve the necessary energy transition goals,” states Bill Morrow, country manager of X-ELIO in the U.S. “X-ELIO is a great partner committed to the sustainability needs of its customers and it is an honor for us to be able to collaborate with exceptional partners like BASF.”

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Qcells’ USA president Rich Chung at last week’s event to celebrate the start of construction of the 190MW Cunningham project in Texas. Image: Qcells.

Qcells has followed up the start of construction in the US on its first-ever standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) project with the announcement of three more projects.

The vertically integrated solar PV and smart energy system company, together with developer Summit Ridge Energy, said it is working on three standalone BESS facilities in New York.

Last week, as reported by Energy-Storage.news, Qcells said it had closed a US$150 million financing deal and begun construction of its 190MW/380MWh Cunnigham Energy Storage project in Texas, marking its first entry into the utility-scale standalone storage space.

The company said the revolving credit loan facility, secured with lead arrangers BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole CIB, would go towards its pipeline of future projects, as well as being applied to Cunningham.

The three New York projects, in Staten Island and Brooklyn, are much smaller, adding up to 12MW/48MWh in total. The revenues they earn will come from a different business model than the Texas project which will play into that state’s ERCOT wholesale merchant electricity market.

They are instead enrolled into New York’s Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) scheme, through which utilities in the state pay owners and operators of DERs compensation based on when and where they provide electricity to the grid.

That’s based on five factors: energy value, capacity value, environmental value, demand reduction value and locational system relief value.

Qcells’ partner, Summit Ridge Energy, specialises in community solar PV and energy storage projects and already has some other facilities enrolled into the scheme. Summit Ridge has a portfolio of more than 700MW of clean energy projects in operation or development in the US, together with over 100MWh of standalone energy storage, which it only began developing in 2019.

Under the terms of the pair’s three-year partnership, Qcells will supply the energy storage hardware and software. Qcells said it will lean on the energy management system (EMS) it acquired when it bought US commercial and industrial (C&I) storage software specialist Geli in late 2020.

The Geli software will be able to predict peaks in energy demand on the NYISO grid, exporting stored energy during these times to support the network’s stable operation. It was claimed these projects will be the first in New York to “intelligently address peak hour dispatch”.

“The opportunity for energy storage in New York is significant––not only will standalone storage support grid resilience as the state continues to transition to renewable energy, but it will also help reduce reliance on fossil fuel peaker plants and help to regulate grid frequency,” Summit Ridge Energy COO Brian Dunn said.

As noted last week when New York State’s governor Kathy Hochul announced funding to support a grouping of long-duration energy storage projects and technologies, New York has a goal to deploy 6GW of energy storage on the grid by 2030.

In tandem with that is the need to push forward decarbonisation and improvements in air quality by reducing reliance on fossil fuel peaker plants. Thus far, plans for replacement have largely been focused on building large-scale four-hour battery storage plants, typically of about 100MW/400MWh from the few examples in development so far.

However, distributed battery systems like the trio on the way from Qcells and Summit Ridge Energy could be a complementary way to get clean peaking capacity onto the network quickly.

Construction on the three projects has already begun and commissioning is expected to take place early in 2023.

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