Genex solar farm in Kidston, Queensland, close to the site of the 2GWh PHES plant the company has under construction. The 50MW PV facility pictured is being expanded to 270MW to integrate with the pumped hydro. Image: Genex.

Clean energy developer Genex Power has “secured the final piece” of its project finance package for the 50MW/100MWh Bouldercombe Battery Project (BBP) in Queensland, Australia. 

Genex made an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) this morning. Having received firm commitments to a AU$40 million (US$29 million) capital raise to fund the project, it has now achieved contractual close for the standalone battery energy storage system (BESS). 

The announcement comes just two days after Energy-Storage.news reported that Genex had agreed a AU$35 million debt finance facility for BBP from specialist project finance fund manager Infradebt under a 12-year term.

Tesla will supply 40 of its Megapack grid-scale battery storage units to the project and the US tech company’s Autobidder trading and bidding platform will control its market-facing activities. 

Genex said the AU$40 million institutional placement, alongside the Infradebt loan, will go towards project construction costs as well as repay an existing debt facility to Australia’s national Clean Energy Finance Corporation and provide further working capital. 

“I am delighted to announce today the final piece for the project financing of the Bouldercombe Battery Project, being the completion of a AU$40 million institutional placement,” Genex Power CEO James Harding said, thanking the company’s existing institutional shareholders and welcoming new ones. 

“In acknowledgement of this support, I am pleased to confirm the launch of a AU$10 million Share Purchase Plan to allow our retail shareholders to participate in the capital raising on similar terms to investors under the institutional placement.”

Bouldercombe, along with Genex’s large-scale pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant under construction at Kidston, also in Queensland, “will add significant upside exposure for shareholders when it commences operation,” scheduled for mid-2023, Harding said. 

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EStor-Lux battery site, Bastogne, Belgium. Image: EStor-Lux.

The EStor-Lux battery site in south Belgium fully launched commercial activity in December and has successfully participated in grid frequency auctions, the consortium behind the project has said, with 16GW of balancing capacity provided so far.

The EStor-Lux 10MW/20MWh lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) at Bastogne, covered by Energy-storage.news as it achieved financial close in November 2020, launched full commercial activities on 9 December 2021. The BESS was provided by system integrator and technology company Fluence, based on its sixth generation Cube modular hardware platform.

Centrica Business Solutions is in charge of the optimisation and has had the system participate in most of the automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR) auctions organised by Elia, the Belgian high-voltage transmission system operator. It claims the 480-module system has provided 16,000 MW of balancing capacity to Elia since launching.

The battery park in Bastogne is integrated in a virtual portfolio with other flexible capacity sources, the announcement on 18 February says. It claims it is the largest active battery site in Benelux in terms of storage capacity, although larger projects are following hot on its heels.

Two 25MW/100MWh systems are set to launch this year: one in Ruien launched by a Japanese-Belgian joint venture in Q4 2022 and one in Balen being developed by commodities trader Trafigura should also be completed this year. That pair are also among four new build battery projects totalling 130MW/540MWh awarded capacity market contracts by Elia last year through its newly introduced Capacity Remuneration Mechanism (CRM).

The consortium behind the Bastogne project is made up of investment groups SRIW, Ackermans & van Haaren, BEWATT, SOCOFE and SOFILUX, engineering and construction firm CFE and Belgian government development organisation IDELUX.

Longer-duration batteries are well placed for aFRR services which require longer activation periods in a single direction than today’s main revenue stream in continental Europe, Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR).

A cross-border platform to mutualise aFRR auctions across the continent is being created, Project PICASSO, which Energy-storage.news wrote about last year. It will enable continental European countries to share their balancing energy and has triggered reforms to allow storage to participate in the market in countries such as Belgium, France and Spain – elsewhere regulations still prevent it from joining.

France, Germany and Austria are set to launch the platform in the current quarter while Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Czechia, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria will join later this year. The bulk, though not all, of remaining EU countries are set to join in 2023/24.

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Sunnova technician with customers

Sunnova Energy International Inc. has launched Sunnova Repair Services. Sunnova’s certified technicians will now be available to help all homeowners who are not under a service warranty to troubleshoot, service and repair their solar and battery storage systems, even if Sunnova did not install them.

“We proudly back all our Sunnova systems with full service warranties so our customers have peace of mind, but we know that not everyone with a solar system has that same level of service,” says Michell Graham, senior vice president of service and energy operations at Sunnova. “Sadly, there are many homeowners with solar systems who are frustrated because either their provider doesn’t offer service and support, or their electrician isn’t able to service their issues. We have an in-house team of dedicated service technicians who are the best in the industry, specially trained to service most major equipment providers for residential solar and storage.”

Sunnova provides maintenance, monitoring, repairs and replacement parts to over 170,000 solar customers across the country. Now, Sunnova is making these services available for all solar homeowners.

Sunnova Repair Services technicians are professionally certified solar experts; they have completed hundreds of hours of training and are certified to work on systems from solar brands such as Enphase, Generac, SolarEdge and Tesla. They can diagnose, troubleshoot, repair and/or replace equipment issues caused by manufacturer or installation defects, weather and more. Sunnova is available to help with a variety of solar repairs associated with the monitor, inverter, solar panels (modules), battery, and wiring and connections.

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Heliogen Inc., a provider of AI-enabled concentrated solar energy, has begun site preparation and setup at its first full-scale manufacturing facility, located in Long Beach, Calif. Production lines are expected to become operational in the third quarter of 2022.

The state-of-the-art facility will include assembly lines, an expansive test facility and rapid development center for the production of heliostats and other components in Heliogen’s concentrated solar energy system. Heliogen leverages AI-enabled heliostats to efficiently generate higher temperatures than possible with traditional concentrated solar technology.

The generation of higher temperatures – capable of achieving in excess of 1,000 degrees Celsius – allows the company’s solar technology to efficiently store heat, reduce or eliminate intermittency of renewably generated energy, and cost-effectively replace fossil fuels with sunlight for a range of industrial processes.

Heliostats from the Long Beach production facility are expected to be utilized in Heliogen’s anticipated first commercial project in California.

“We believe our state-of-the-art heliostat manufacturing facility is the world’s first and only purpose-built facility for high-volume heliostat production,” states Bill Gross, CEO of Heliogen. “Our ability to manufacture Heliogen heliostats in the facility enables a significant cost advantage compared to earlier heliostat production, which was done in the construction field under less controlled conditions. Our modular plant design, together with our patented software control system, supports our mission to cost-effectively deliver near 24/7 carbon-free energy in the form of heat, power, or green hydrogen fuel at scale – for the first time in history.”

Heliogen’s Long Beach manufacturing facility is being led by Andy Lambert, chief production and supply chain officer, formerly of SpaceX and BMW, where he built large-scale, high-quality, automated production lines for products that work outdoors with long lifetimes and high reliability.

“Moving ahead with the Long Beach manufacturing facility represents a significant step forward in bringing sustainable energy solutions to heavy industry,” states Lambert. “With some of the country’s best and brightest talent, key suppliers, and access to an expansive infrastructure and logistics network, Heliogen is confident that Long Beach will emerge as a hub for green energy manufacturing solutions.”

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Apex Clean Energy LLC, funds managed by the Infrastructure and Power strategy of Ares Management Corp., EPIC Midstream Holdings LP and the Port of Corpus Christi Authority (PCCA), have entered into a nonbinding memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the development of a green hydrogen production, storage, transportation and export operation, including a newly constructed dedicated pipeline and a green fuels hub to be located at the Port of Corpus Christi on the Texas Gulf Coast.

The project would produce green hydrogen and other derivative green fuels in volumes not yet seen in the United States, with additional scale possible by decade’s end. Apex expects to utilize its portfolio of wind and solar projects currently in development in Texas to power facilities producing green hydrogen and derivative green fuels products. In addition, EPIC will consider leveraging its pipeline construction and operating expertise to accelerate the development of a new, dedicated green fuels pipeline. The project would also endeavor to leverage and develop existing and new storage, processing and export infrastructure sited on real estate owned by PCCA.

“We are excited to build on our existing relationship with PCCA to develop and build what we believe will be one of the largest green hydrogen projects in the country to date,” says Keith Derman, partner and co-head of Ares Infrastructure and Power. “The project demonstrates the type of innovative, broad and collaborative approach across industries and stakeholders that we believe can deliver novel energy solutions that help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and combat climate change. Further, this underscores Ares’ leading capabilities in providing differentiated solutions to a growing asset class as we seek to drive returns for our investors through opportunities aligned with their sustainability goals.”

Ares and PCCA previously executed a separate nonbinding memorandum of understanding in May 2021, with the intention of developing renewable energy infrastructure on PCCA-owned property to support the production of green hydrogen and optionality to provide renewable power directly to the port and its customers. This MOU builds on that effort, specifically with respect to the development of green fuels projects.

“This project seeks to generate and deliver green hydrogen and other clean fuels precisely where they are needed most – at the industrial backbone of our nation,” states Mark Goodwin, Apex Clean Energy’s president and CEO. “Together with Ares, EPIC and the Port of Corpus Christi, Apex would leverage the highest-quality wind and solar resources in Texas to help decarbonize difficult-to-abate industries – including the transportation, shipping, fertilizer, chemical and refining sectors – and include optionality for global export. This would be green fuel production at gigawatt scale.”

“This initiative is exactly the type of interdisciplinary collaboration that would enable scalable projects that move the needle on diversification of the energy marketplace,” mentions Jeff Pollack, chief strategy and sustainability officer for the Port of Corpus Christi. “This monumental potential project would directly contribute to the burgeoning clean hydrogen hub at the Port of Corpus Christi and would directly support our ambitions to cultivate world-scale hydrogen exports as our part in national decarbonization and energy balance of trade objectives.”

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Aaron Young

Amshore, a renewable energy development company, has promoted senior project developer Aaron Young to the role of vice president of development. In his new role, he leads the development strategy, execution and team focused on helping utility companies and independent power producers expand their renewable energy projects throughout North America.

“We continue to invest in our team and capabilities as a leading renewable energy developer to help our valued clients,” states Deana Strunk, owner of Amshore. “With his in-the-field renewable energy development experience and his history at our company, Aaron will continue to deliver results for our clients and help shape the future of Amshore as we grow and expand.”

Young joined Amshore in 2014 and has developed and assisted in the development and construction of key projects throughout the country. Over the last 20 years, Amshore has originated and developed solar and wind energy facilities generating 2.9 GW of power covering over a half a million acres.

“Development is at the core of one of the most exciting industries within the energy sector—renewable energy,” says Young. “Our highest priority is helping our clients and partners bring clean power to the world. I look forward to leading our team as we continue to invest in our renewable development services.”

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Myke Clark

Solar Alliance Energy Inc. has signed a contract with Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB), an independent agency of the City of Knoxville, for the design and installation of a 1 MW solar project in Knoxville, Tenn. KUB provides electric, natural gas, water, wastewater and fiber broadband services to more than 473,000 customers in the city area.

Solar Alliance will design, engineer and install the 1 MW project, which is scheduled to begin construction in April 2022; it is targeted for completion in August 2022. The project builds on Solar Alliance’s expanding utility customer project base, following solar initiatives with utilities LG&E/KU, EPB and AEC. It also builds on the company’s support program for utilities which includes grant work, financial modeling, energy modeling and electric vehicle charger deployment.

“This large community solar project for KUB builds on our growing utility customer base and we are proud to support KUB in delivering the benefits of solar to Knoxville,” says Solar Alliance CEO Myke Clark. “Solar Alliance is a Knoxville-based leader in the commercial and utility solar sector and this project illustrates our commitment to our local community while building strong relationships with utilities. It also shows our growth as a company as we continue to aggressively grow our backlog of large projects. The potential for solar growth in Knoxville, Tennessee and the U.S. Southeast is massive, and we have become a market leader in this rapidly growing industry.”

KUB previously announced that 20% of Knoxville’s electricity will be generated from solar energy, through participation in TVA’s Green Invest program. In total, KUB will secure enough solar energy to power about 83,000 homes.

“We are so excited to bring Knoxville its first Community Solar site and are looking forward to partnering with Solar Alliance and the City of Knoxville to make it happen,” comments Gabriel Bolas, KUB’s president and CEO. “This is another way we support solar energy generation, and it also makes the benefits of solar power more accessible to our community members.” Solar Alliance and KUB also entered into an operations and maintenance agreement for the project for one year. Upon mutual agreement of the parties, the term may be extended for up to four additional one-year renewal terms.

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Battery adoption is following the path laid out by rooftop solar PV, Guidehouse said. Image: Solarwatt.

Guidehouse Insights says that the annual power capacity deployments of battery-based residential energy storage systems (RESS) are expected to grow at a CAGR of 21.3% from 2021 to 2030 globally.

By the end of the decade, the Colorado-headquartered research group predicts they will account for half of all residential power system sales, with a market share equal to gensets.

The bulk of the market is currently diesel or natural gas generators, or gensets, which made up around 80% of annual installations last year with battery energy storage systems (BESS) the remainder. But Guidehouse expects genset installations to remain flat over the decade with BESS growing to become about half of annual installed capacity by 2030. 

“While gensets continue to be popular, the most significant trend is the increasing adoption of battery-based RESSs,” said William Hughes, principal research analyst with Guidehouse Insights.

“This trend follows the increasing adoption of solar panels by homeowners because the sale of battery-based RESSs is almost always accompanied by solar panels.” 

One interesting reference point that Energy-Storage.news has noted is the move by US backup power solutions specialist Generac, one of the country’s biggest manufacturers and vendors of gensets, into offering battery energy storage for homeowners, with sales experiencing a surge during 2021, driven by customers’ awareness of blackout events. The company recently added the ability for its PWRcell-branded home battery units to sell power back to the grid.

A third technology alongside gensets and BESS is thermal energy storage, but Guidehouse has not publicly revealed expected growth or the 2030 proportion of installations. 

The research firm says that the main driver for homeowners to install storage is to reduce inconveniences associated with power outages and in some cases, reduce costs and increase their use of renewable power. 

But it cautions that the sector faces many challenges. These can be immediate problems like how complicated it is to get accurate information on merits and costs, the need for onsite evaluations and the wide variety and specificity of available subsidies. 

Less tangible but still relevant is the tarnishing of the industry’s reputation because of exaggerated claims and business failures by industry players, Guidehouse said, which slows the adoption of residential BESS. This explains why some homeowners still opt for established technology like gensets.

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Eelpower and Habitat’s three-year deal covers two 50MW sites. Image: Eelpower.

Optimisation deals have been announced for battery storage systems in the UK for Habitat Energy and Centrica with developers Eelpower and Arlington Energy respectively.

Eelpower and Habitat Energy have signed a three-year battery optimisation agreement for two battery storage assets, each of 50MW output.

The battery energy storage system (BESS) projects are being built as part of Eelpower’s joint venture with the Swiss infrastructure fund manager SUSI Partners, which was signed last year. 

Habitat will manage the assets – which are located in Fordtown near Aberdeen, Scotland and Halesworth in Suffolk, England – using Eelpower’s bespoke Eel Dispatch platform, which was developed with KrakenFlex. The Fordtown asset will provide grid services to Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and National Grid, and Halesworth will support UK Power Networks. 

The deal follows four years of collaboration, the companies said, but marks the first route-to-market agreement signed by Eelpower and Habitat.

“We have been close to the Habitat founders as they have pioneered the optimisation of UK battery storage trading while earning a first-class reputation for client service,” said Mark Simon, chief executive of Eelpower.

“We are delighted to be working with Habitat to maximise revenues in our landmark joint venture with SUSI Partners.”

The deal follows Eelpower selecting EDF as a trading and optimising partner for three of its batteries earlier this month. 

Habitat Energy was acquired by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners in November 2021.

Centrica signs 10-year deal with Arlington Energy

Centrica Business Solutions has agreed a 10-year contract for the optimisation of three battery storage plants totaling 89MW, each with a one hour duration.

Developed by Arlington Energy with the backing of 4 Renewable Energy, the IPP arm of RGREEN INVEST, the three battery storage projects are currently under construction and are expected to be completed by summer 2022.

The agreement is one of the largest battery optimisation deals in the UK, according to Dan Connor, head of optimisation sales at Centrica Business Solutions, who added that is is a “significant development” in the goals of both Centrica Business Solutions and RGREEN INVEST of being leaders in the net zero transition.

Once commissioned, the battery energy storage systems (BESS) will provide flexibility to the energy system, helping to stabilise intermittent output from renewable energy sources and enabling security of supply.

This support is to be delivered through a combination of markets which help to manage grid frequency and energy trading to mitigate shortfalls in supply or demand through either short-term commodity markets or the Balancing Mechanism.

Centrica Business Solutions is to deliver this strategy on behalf of 4 Renewable Energy using its FlexPond platform, adapting the output of the battery in real time to deliver the most cost-effective use of the energy storage capacity at any one time. 

This approach maximises both the environmental impact of the assets and the return on investment of the projects, Centrica said.

“Providing confidence in the level of returns will bolster the significant interest and investment we are currently witnessing in the storage sector,” Connor said.

Centrica Business Solutions has also previously secured a battery optimisation agreement with Eelpower for the 10MW Leverton storage project, while in 2020 it partnered with domestic battery storage company sonnen, using its FlexPond platform to develop a virtual power plant.

At the beginning of this month, sister site Current± reported that another optimiser, Arenko, had been awarded contracts to optimise 455MW of battery storage for UK investor-developer Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, expanding an existing multi-year relationship between the pair.

These stories originally appeared as separate items on Current±.

Habitat-Eelpower story by Molly Lempriere

Centrica-Arlington story by Alice Grundy

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Alaminos Solar and Storage, as the project has now been dubbed by ACEN. Image: ACEN.

The first ever solar-plus-storage hybrid resources system in the Philippines is now in operation after energy company AC Energy (ACEN) switched on the site’s battery energy storage system (BESS).

The 40MW pilot battery energy storage project in the Philippines has been switched on at the site of Alaminos Solar, a 120MW solar PV power plant in the municipality of Alaminos, Laguna, about 80km south of the country’s capital Manila. 

ACEN, a publicly-listed integrated energy company with generation assets and retail electricity businesses headquartered in the Philippines and owned by holding company Ayala Group, said yesterday that the BESS has been brought online and will be used to evaluate opportunities to develop more storage across the company’s portfolio.

The BESS consists of two 20MW facilities with 1.5 hour duration each, totalling 40MW/60MWh. 

It was supplied by Saft, the battery manufacturer and energy storage company owned by TotalEnergies and the BESS comprises 24 containerised units housing Saft’s 2.5MWh lithium-ion battery storage solutions.

The batteries will charge directly from the solar plant when demand is low, outputting when demand rises. It will also manage the local electricity network and provide ancillary services to the national grid. 

According to ACEN’s website construction on the battery storage system began in October 2020 and development and construction required about PHP2.2 billion (US$42.8 million) investment. 

Meanwhile, the site’s 120MW solar plant was brought online in June 2021 and a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for its output has been signed between ACEN and Ayala Land, another company in its owner’s portfolio.

It is built on the site of Ayala Land’s Sustainability Hub, which includes a woodland reserve aimed at trapping carbon and fostering biodiversity. It also has a plastic recycling facility that diverts plastic waste from landfills to be pressed into bricks and reused as building materials. 

“We will be looking to increase our investments in storage as the technology increases its viability and competitiveness,” ACEN’s president and CEO Eric Francia said, adding that the company was “delighted to start the operations” of its very first battery storage project.   

In October, Energy-Storage.news reported that ACEN will be piloting the use of battery storage in Vietnam, pairing a 15MW/7.5MWh BESS with a 50MWp solar power plant in a project supported with a US$2.96 million grant from the US Consulate General. ACEN is working in partnership with Vietnamese company AMI Renewables on that one. 

“We are taking advantage of battery storage technology’s fast response, scalability and ease of integration into our renewable projects,” ACEN’s Jose Maria Zabaleta said. Image: ACEN.

Philippines’ rising opportunity for energy storage

Although ACEN has power generation assets internationally, including more than 1,500MW of projects in India, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam — all of which are renewable energy systems — it has about the same amount in Philippines, of which about 80% are renewables. 

ACEN is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050 and wants to reach 5,000MW of renewables capacity by 2025. 

“We are taking advantage of battery storage technology’s fast response, scalability and ease of integration into our renewable projects. With the Alaminos Energy Storage project, we can harness renewable energy more effectively amidst its variability while improving the operating capabilities of the grid and ensuring high reliability,” ACEN chief development officer Jose Maria Zabaleta said. 

Over the past couple of years, battery storage development in the Philippines by major energy companies has stepped up pace.

While the ACEN project is the first large-scale solar-plus-storage hybrid, Energy-Storage.news has reported on several standalone utility-scale BESS projects since contracts began to be announced and projects started to come online during 2021. 

SMC Global Power Holdings, a subsidiary of Philippines holding company San Miguel Corporation, has contracted leading international energy storage players including Fluence, Wärtsilä and ABB to deliver projects in a 1,000MW BESS portfolio. 

Another power generation, supply and distribution company in the country, Aboitiz Power, said in August as it announced a moratorium on new coal plants that it is deploying 69MW of BESS across two projects, one on a floating power barge (49MW) and the other at a hydroelectric power plant (20MW). 

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