Sol-REIT LLC has signed an exclusive partnership to finance over 100 MW of community solar development projects, focused within the Northeastern United States, to bring solar to disadvantaged and underserved communities. Source Renewables will develop the projects. Sol-REIT will provide capital to Source Renewables for construction and long-term financing of solar projects in their pipeline.

“We are playing our part to address one of the greatest challenges in today’s solar energy market: access to capital for solar developers targeting projects in underserved communities,” states Mark Settles, CEO of Sol-REIT. “These underserved communities are those who need access to clean renewable energy the most, and Sol-REIT is helping to serve that need in this partnership with Source Renewables.”

Sol-REIT’s financial structure for renewable energy development provides access to construction capital and long-term financing for middle-market solar developers who seek to retain equity in their projects. This financing allows developers to maintain ownership beyond Notice-to-proceed (NTP), improving the economics for developers. Sol-REIT applies the REIT financial structure used in the commercial real estate industry to empower solar developers and streamline funding timelines via its proprietary fintech portfolio management system.

By financing solar projects in a similar model to real estate, Sol-REIT offers the potential of solid investor returns with predictable cash flows backed by long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) with high credit quality off-takers. Sol-REIT is also committed to democratizing the solar industry increasing access to affordable, clean energy to homes, businesses, and governmental entities across North America.

“We are excited to work with Sol-REIT to expand our efforts in providing access to clean energy for all residents in the Northeast region. This is a meaningful partnership between two companies that are committed to transforming the region and bringing over 100 MW of community solar infrastructure to underserved communities,” mentions Andrew Day, partner and founder of Source Renewables.

Source Renewables’ sister company, Source Power Co., enables clean energy access to communities in New York state by committing to programs and projects targeted to both subscribers and developer sponsors. Source Power can offer a streamlined billing solution, greatly reducing community solar challenges. Property owners can choose to sell or lease their land to Source Renewables. The firm then develops solar farms that are compliant with all municipal zoning guidelines as well as all federal, state and local environmental regulations.

Over the course of the next two years, this partnership is poised to facilitate the construction of at least 100 MW of solar projects. “In the current economic climate and the volatility of oil prices, solar and clean energy renewables are becoming increasingly critical to the stabilization of the energy markets,” comments New York State Sen. Kevin Parker. “The need for renewables, like the projects Sol-REIT finance and Source Renewables develop, are of vital importance to this region’s energy independence.”

Image: Photo by Derek Sutton on Unsplash

Continue reading

ESS Inc executives and staff ring the NYSE opening bell in October. ESS Inc and Stem were among several energy storage companies that publicly listed this year and last year. Image: ESS Inc via Twitter.

NYSE-listed iron flow battery group ESS Inc is expanding into Europe with its first deployments on the continent later this year and local manufacturing capability expected by 2024/25.

The company is scheduled to book its first revenues in the US in the current quarter and will begin European deployment of its long-duration batteries during the second half of 2022.

Its iron flow batteries provide 4-12 hours of duration and claim unlimited cycles with no capacity loss, versus Li-ion’s average of 6,000.

It says its product is made using earth-abundant materials like iron, salt and water making it safe, low-cost and sustainable. It concedes that lithium-ion has a lower capital cost per kWh but claims parity at 4 hours with iron flow winning thereafter.

Its has two main products: the 400kWh Energy Warehouse for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers and the Energy Center for utility-scale applications which provides 6MW/74MWh per acre footprint. It expects to ship 40-50 Energy Warehouses this year but has not guided on Energy Center orders.

ESS Inc expects to start manufacturing its Warehouse and Center products on the European continent in 2024, according to a company presentation, with Power Module manufacturing arriving on the continent the following year.

Long-term customers include Softbank’s clean energy arm SB Energy, Enel Green Power España and Chilean utility Edalaysen.

The company says the European region will need a whopping 30 TWh of long-duration energy storage to make its grid net-zero by 2040, citing the Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES) Council which published a report finding that 85-130GWh will be needed globally. The LDES Council has some 30 technology members providing a range of technologies for long duration including iron flow, gravity-based and green hydrogen solutions.

As part of ESS Inc’s expansion into Europe it recently appointed Alan Greenshields as Director of Europe to oversee adoption and deployment of its solutions. Energy-storage.news recently interviewed him along with the CEO and CCO of competing long-duration battery storage group Invinity Energy Systems.

In it, Greenshields highlighted the commercial & industrial (C&I) sector and colocation with solar or wind as ideal use cases for its product, though claimed it was getting interest from all corners of the market.

Continue reading

Jaguar Land Rover says the system has been used to power diagnostic equipment during testing by its Formula 1 team. Image: Jaguar Land Rover.

Jaguar Land Rover is developing an energy storage system (ESS) unit using second life batteries from its electric vehicles.

It has launched the Off Grid Battery Energy Storage System (ESS) in partnership with power application supplier Pramac. The ESS will use lithium-ion battery cells batteries used in prototype and engineering test Jaguar I-PACE vehicles, its first electric SUV.

The flagship system has a capacity of up to 125KWh, can be portable or fixed, and is charged from solar panels. Its battery system is linked to bi-directional converter and the associated control management systems. It has Type 2 EV charge connections with dynamic control and up to 22kW AC.

Pramac will be able to use 85% of the Jaguar I-PACE’s battery components, including modules and wiring, and the remainder will be recycled back into the supply chain. The ESS has been used by the Jaguar TCS Racing team during race car testing and will also be deployed at a customer experience centre in South Africa to mitigate against power outages.

It is the company’s first step in creating circular economy business models as part of its ambition to reach net zero by 2039 and is several years in the making. Research on whether its I-PACE batteries could be used in domestic applications was first announced back in 2017, as reported in Energy-storage.news‘ sister site Current.

The European Union is pushing for higher recycled content in batteries through legislation and automative companies have made similar moves to Jaguar’s. Used lithium-ion batteries from Audi’s EVs were recently used in a 4.5MWh BESS at a pumped hydro plant in Germany. Hyundai is developing a BESS product using second life EV batteries in partnership with solar developer OCI Solar Power and Texan utility CPS Energy, with testing scheduled for September 2022.

Energy-storage.news recently featured a guest blog from Matthew Lumsden, CEO at Connected Energy, which specialises in using second life EV batteries, which argued that designing batteries to be used should be a priority for industry, alongside designing for recycling at end-of-life.

Continue reading

The average UK grid-scale battery project size went from 6MW in 2017 to more than 45MW in 2021. Image: RES Group.

From 2016 onwards, the UK energy markets’s appetite for battery energy storage systems (BESS) has grown and grown, making it one of the leading centres of activity in the global market today. Solar Media Market Research analyst Mollie McCorkindale offers an insight into that trajectory and illustrates where the market is today.

Utility-scale energy storage activity in the UK saw strong growth during 2021 with annual deployment growing 70% compared to 2020. Additionally, the pipeline of future projects increased by 11 GW to over 27 GW by the end of 2021.

This article discusses the factors behind the recent growth of the UK utility-scale energy storage market and what led to the strong annual deployment last year.

Strong growth of installed capacity during 2021

Previously, 2018 had the highest annual installed capacity of utility-scale energy storage in the UK with 442 MW added. In 2021, deployment levels exceeded this marginally, with 446 MW, mainly across 10 large-scale sites; going forward,  deployment levels are likely to see further Y/Y increases.

Total installed capacity of utility-scale storage is now approaching 1.7 GW across 127 sites and the figure below shows annual installed energy storage capacity by project size. 

The UK installed 446 MW of utility-scale energy storage in 2021, close to the previous high seen back in 2018. Image: Solar Media Market Research.

The average size of utility-scale energy storage sites has also increased. In previous years, there was more of a mix of project sizes. In 2021, the majority of sites installed were stand-alone and 7 out of the 10 key projects completed were 49.9 MW. The main projects ranged from 30 MW to 49.9 MW each, which supports the trend for large stand-alone projects to dominate installations in the future.

Focusing on average project size by annual deployment capacity, the average project size in 2017 was less than 6 MW: in 2021, the average project size was 45 MW.

Deployment levels for projects less than 5 MW has decreased, with many of these being co-located with existing wind or solar sites. There are now 56 sites of this size (less than 5 MW) installed, out of the total 127 sites; this segment makes up almost half the number of total operational sites so far. Most of these were installed between 2016 and 2018. Further growth here will likely be seen as new wind and solar farms become operational.

Operational utility-scale energy storage projects between 5 MW and 30 MW have mostly been from stand-alone sites, but are now becoming less common as average project size is increasing.

When looking at the asset owners of these operational sites, specifically in 2021, many are owned by large asset owners such as Gresham House and Pivot Power. These companies have huge pipelines of energy storage projects, which are now starting to be constructed, meaning installed capacity could rapidly accelerate in the near future.

The majority of projects deployed in 2021 were submitted into planning between 2017 and 2019 and from this we can see that there is still a large amount of pipeline submitted during this period that is still pending construction; this underlines the potential for growth in 2022 and beyond.

Substantial growth of UK pipeline during 2021

The figure below shows annual capacity of submitted applications by project size with 2021 being a record-breaking year by some margin.

2021 was a record-breaking year for annual submitted energy storage capacity; 11 GW was submitted across 225 sites. Image: Solar Media Market Research.

During 2021, the pipeline jumped by 11 GW to more than 27 GW, partly due to the increase in the 50 MW threshold. Another reason for this particularly high surge in applications is because companies are becoming more experienced in the services available, allowing for more attractive revenue streams. As such, the overall risks in build-out have been reduced and the key stakeholders in the market appear to understand better how to operate projects profitably.

In 2021, two pre-applications were submitted for 500 MW stand-alone sites, the largest energy storage sites seen in planning so far. Both projects are to be located in Scotland and were submitted by Alcemi Storage Developments.

Before last year, 2017 had the highest annual submitted capacity at 4.2 GW across 203 sites where the average project size was close to 20 MW. The average project size submitted in 2021 was almost 49 MW. This is mostly from large stand-alone sites but also from many smaller co-located sites. However, the average project size for co-located sites is also increasing as the overall size of co-located technologies increases also; the large-scale ( >30 MW) segment also contains some co-located sites within the total capacity.

In 2021 most of the proposed projects under 30 MW were co-located with source of generation and projects above 30 MW were stand-alone. In the past, we have seen much smaller stand-alone projects and co-located projects were typically smaller than 5 MW.

So far, the market has been dominated by sites with 1 hour duration storage, with some half hour duration in early years. However, there is an increasing amount of longer duration storage sites starting to emerge within the pipeline which is partially due to the treatment of longer duration projects in the capacity market but also reflected in the access to the other services available for battery storage to participate in.

Most projects completed last year were of 1 hour duration or less and when looking at projects likely to be completed this year there are more 2 hour duration storage sites, with this trend likely to continue. In the latest results for the UK T-4 (2025-2026) Capacity Market auction, around 60% is of 2 hour duration or longer, similar to the results for the UK T-4 (2024-2025) results. Previous UK capacity auction results have been dominated by one hour duration batteries.

All these trends continue to evolve in a rapidly growing market. Average project size will continue to increase for energy storage sites and the market will remain dominated by large stand-alone sites with large capacities, although co-location with renewables will account for a larger number of projects as solar deployment in the UK increases during 2022 and beyond. Annual deployment is expected to rise each year as large-scale projects begin construction and this is shown by the large pipeline that has built up in previous years. We expect to see 2 hour duration storage becoming more prominent within the market and there is likely to be a mix of 1 hour and 2 hour duration storage with some longer duration making an appearance.

Full details of all completed and future projects are contained within the UK Battery Storage Project Database Report. To learn how to subscribe to this report, please complete your contact details at the link here.

Continue reading

Large-scale vanadium flow battery demonstration project in Hubei, China. Image: VRB Energy.

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced financial support for four technology sector manufacturing projects in the country, including a vanadium processing plant.

Morrison said during a speech at an industry event in Western Australia that AU$243.6 million (US$177.47 million) in funding will support efforts to establish a homegrown value chain for critical minerals, batteries and electric vehicles.

It is part of his government’s Modern Manufacturing Initiative, a drive to put a total of AU$1.3 billion investment into the economy.

Along with AU$30 million towards establishing the world’s first rare earth separation facility outside China – a project with a total cost of AU$90.8 million, three projects relating directly to battery energy storage will benefit.

One is Australian Vanadium’s vanadium processing plant, which will receive AU$49 million of its expected AU$367 million cost. The company is seeking to process high-purity vanadium from a mining deposit it is developing in Meekatharra, Western Australia at a plant in Tenindewa, about 500km away.

Australian Vanadium will utilise green hydrogen to transport the metal, with the aim of using the processed material for flow battery production.

Also receiving funding is a nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) lithium-ion material refinery ‘hub’ in development by Pure Battery Technologies – which claimed to have a process for producing high quality materials at lower cost than others.

Pure Battery Technologies (PBT) and its partner, Poseidon Nickel, will receive AU$119.6 million through the scheme. The project’s total cost is expected to be AU$399 million and it is set to be built in Kalgoorlie, also in Western Australia.

PBT’s process for making precursor cathode active materials (PCAM) was developed at the University of Queensland. The company is commercialising two processes, one called Selective Acid Leaching, the other Combined Leach, which it said on its website can make materials with a lower environmental footprint than other processes and either primary intermediate materials or recycled ‘black mass’ can be used as feedstock.

Another partnership, between minerals exploration company Alpha HPA and mining and construction support services group Orica, is developing a AU$330 million high purity alumina production plant in Gladstone, Queensland.

The government has awarded the project AU$45 million in funding, with the alumina to be used for products like lithium batteries and LED lighting.

“Projects like these make for a stronger economy and a stronger future for Australia,” Morrison said.

“These projects are about manufacturing the products and materials Australians need and the world needs, by making them right here at home.”

Australia is belatedly joining a race which Europe and latterly the US and India are participating in, each hoping to reduce the world’s almost total dependency on East Asia – and mainly China – for processing materials for, and manufacturing of, batteries.

Morrison’s Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor said that the initiative is designed to address China’s dominance in key industries including batteries.

“Australia is lucky to have some of the largest reserves of the critical minerals and metals which drive the modern global economy. But China currently dominates around 70 to 80% of global critical minerals production and continues to consolidate its hold over these supply chains,” Taylor said.

Recognition of home advantage on vanadium

It is the second award of funding for Australian Vanadium through the initiative, after the company was awarded AU$3.9 million last year to help fast-track its vanadium processing capabilities.

The vanadium flow battery was invented in Australia at the University of New South Wales and the country is thought to have rich raw material resources in the ground.

 Yet none of the world’s three primary vanadium producers have operations there, nor are there electrolyte or flow battery production plants in the country, which one of the technology’s main inventors, UNSW professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, told our quarterly journal PV Tech Power is an unfortunate fact.

Australian Vanadium and others are seeking to change that and establish operations further downstream in the value chain. Australian Vanadium is developing a vanadium electrolyte production plant which it claimed will be able to produce enough liquid electrolyte for 33GWh of flow batteries each year. It has already selected contractor Primero for the first stages of construction, the company told Energy-Storage.news last September.

Australian Vanadium has set up a flow battery subsidiary, VSUN Energy, through which to market and commercialise flow batteries using its own raw and processed materials, with a manufacturing partner, V-Flow Tech, based in Singapore.

Other companies are looking to establish flow battery supply chain capabilities in Australia from deposit to electrolyte. One, Vecco Group, is developing a mine in north-east Queensland and an electrolyte plant with 2 million litres annual production capacity, targeting the start of commercial operations next year.

Approval for another vanadium mine in Queensland has been granted by the state’s government, which is also looking to directly invest capital into establishing a processing plant.

Continue reading

GREP will sit in the Gippsland Renewable Energy Zone (GREZ). Image: CEFC.

Australian superannuation (pension) fund Hostplus will invest in a joint venture between Octopus Australia and the national Clean Energy Finance Corporation to build a 3,000-hectare, 1.5GW renewable energy park.

The Gippsland Renewable Energy Park (GREP) will provide clean energy to the grid to help replace the power currently delivered by the 1,450MW Yallourn coal power station which will close by 2028.

GREP will investigate the deployment of various technologies at utility scale, including solar, wind, battery storage and also the potential of green hydrogen. A government document says that the GREP project will provide 1.5GW of power though no source is specific on the generation mix or the expected energy storage capacity.

It is is set to start construction in 2024 with completion in 2026, according to its website and sits within the Gippsland Renewable Energy Zone (REZ), one of six in the state of Victoria.

Hostplus will invest via an Octopus Australia-managed platform to help develop GREP, while Octopus itself is investing too with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) providing AU$8.5 million (US$6.2 million). Octopus Australia is part of the investment firm Octopus Group which owns UK-based group Octopus Energy, while the CEFC is an Australian government body.

CEFC CEO Ian Learmonth said: “Gippsland has been a powerhouse for the National Electricity Market (NEM) for many years. This development will contribute to the region’s transition to a clean energy future, while continuing to supply the power that helps keep Australia’s lights on.”

The project is one of several at different stages of development in the Gippsland REZ, including the Perry Bridge Solar and Fulham Solar projects which are also being developed by the joint venture between Octopus Australia and the CEFC. The JV bought the projects from developer Solis Re when it was formed in July 2021, and they are sometimes referred to as part of GREP and sometimes as separate entities.

Others in the Gippsland REZ include the Delburn Wind Farm, Star of the South offshore wind farm, Marinus Link, Morwell Solar Farm, Frasers Lane Solar Farm Ramahyuck Solar and Maffra Solar. Large BESS have been proposed for Jeeralang gas power station (EA), Morwell Solar and AGL Loy Yang.

On top of that, investor-owned utility EnergyAustralia, which runs the Yallourn plant, says it will build a 350MW/1400MWh utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) near the plant. Its peer Origin Energy has also called for suitably qualified firms to install an even larger, 700MW BESS near its 2,880MW coal plant in Eraring.

Origin has said that coal is no longer able to compete economically with renewable energy and storage in the NEM and brought forward the planned retirement of its Eraring plant by seven years to 2025 from an originally announced 2032 date.

Coal plants are also expensive to run. Yallourn costs EnergyAustralia more than AU$200 million a year in Opex, while Eraring costs about half that.

However, Australia’s federal government still seems reluctant to commit to a coal phase-out despite belatedly introducing a net zero by 2050 policy target. Non-profit group Environment Victoria has highlighted that coal is the biggest single cause of climate and air pollution in Australia. The group’s CEO Jono La Nauze said last year that all of the remaining 20 or so coal plants in the country should be closed down by 2030, stating that Australians should not “leave such an important task to the market to decide”.

Continue reading

IEA constructed another solar facility for Silicon Ranch Corp., the Appling Solar Farm in Georgia

Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives Inc. (IEA) has been awarded a contract by Silicon Ranch Corp. to construct the Cedar Springs Solar Ranch in Early County, Ga. The 70 MW AC solar project will provide power to Green Power EMC, the renewable energy supplier for 38 Georgia electric cooperatives.

Silicon Ranch is funding the installation of the Cedar Springs Solar Ranch, and will own and operate the solar array. Silicon Ranch’s wholly owned subsidiary, SR EPC, has awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to IEA Constructors, a wholly owned subsidiary of IEA. Construction is scheduled to commence by the end of the first quarter of 2022 and the facility is expected to be online by the end of the year.

“IEA is excited to continue its strong partnership with Silicon Ranch, a true pioneer in the solar energy space,” says Joe Broom, IEA’s senior vice president of solar construction operations. “We look forward to utilizing local skilled labor to help safely and efficiently complete construction of the Cedar Springs Solar Ranch project, while bringing additional clean energy options to the people of Georgia.”

IEA’s scope of work includes the installation of owner furnished modules and full balance of system EPC construction, including all civil, mechanical and electrical work. More than 215,000 First Solar Series 6 modules will be installed across the 1,400-acre site in rural southwest Georgia.

“The Cedar Springs Solar Ranch is our latest opportunity to showcase some of the special qualities that make Georgia such a great place for business, including its renowned workforce,” states Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch’s co-founder and CEO. “Early County holds many firsts for Silicon Ranch, including the first-ever new build facility to incorporate our Regenerative Energy model for land management with White Oak Pastures. We are pleased to partner again with IEA and White Oak Pastures to build on this legacy, and we thank our partners at Green Power EMC, as well as the Early County Board of Commissioners, for making this meaningful investment possible.”

Silicon Ranch will return the land housing the Cedar Springs Solar Ranch to agricultural production through managed sheep grazing under and around solar panels and other regenerative pastureland management practices via its Regenerative Energy platform. Through these regenerative practices, Silicon Ranch will restore the land to a functioning grassland ecosystem and deliver additional benefits to the region, such as carbon sequestration, restored soil health, improved water quality and enhanced biodiversity.

“Four Georgia electric cooperatives will share in the power generated by this new facility which will produce enough clean energy to help serve more than 11,000 households,” comments Jeff Pratt, Green Power EMC’s president. “In addition to adding more low-cost solar power to our members’ renewable energy portfolio, we are proud that this project will create job opportunities and support economic development in Early County.”

Continue reading

Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani. Image: Flickr.

Reliance New Energy Limited, part of the massive Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, has acquired LFP battery manufacturer Lithium Werks for US$61 million two months after buying a sodium-ion battery producer.

Reliance has agreed to buy all of the assets of Lithium Werks which produces lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. The assets include its entire patent portfolio, manufacturing facilities in China, key business contracts and hiring of existing employees as a going concern.

It follows hot on the heels from Reliance’s acquisition of sodium-ion battery technology firm Faradion for an enterprise value of US$135 million. The Lithium Werks deal is being presented as an acquisition of assets rather than the company itself through a share purchase, though it appears to mean effectively the same thing.

The Indian conglomerate says the combination of the two further strengthens its technology portfolio and establish an end-to-end battery ecosystem with the manufacture of key supply chain materials and cells. This will allow it to produce batteries consisting of different chemistries for various applications across energy storage and mobility and battery module systems.

“Along with Faradion, Lithium Werks will enable us to accelerate our vision of establishing India at the core of developments in global battery chemistries and help us provide a secure, safe and high-performance supply chain to the large and growing Indian EV and Energy Storage markets,” said Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Industries Limited, India’s largest company by market capitalisation.

The company said at the time that it might use Faradion’s sodium-ion technology for its fully-integrated energy storage gigafactory in Jamnagar, India, though was not as specific about what it would do with Lithium Werks’ product as yet.

LFP is increasingly being adopted by the energy storage industry, thanks largely to lower fire risk and fewer supply chain issues versus nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) chemistry while its lower energy-density is less of an issue than for EVs. That said, raw materials price rises, particularly for lithium carbonate, have seen even LFP costs rise in the past few months.

The sector is set to grow in India substantially in the coming years with 27GW/108GWh of battery storage needed by 2029/30 according to the country’s Central Electricity Authority. To facilitate this, the Ministry of Power last week issued new guidelines for procuring BESS as assets for generation, transmission and distribution and ancillary services.

And the appetite for storage was demonstrated in January when a government scheme to support domestic battery manufacturing received bids totalling 130GWh of proposals, more than double the 50GWh of capacity the incentive will support.

Reliance is not the first conglomerate to make inroads into the EV and energy storage-focused battery space through sizeable acquisitions. Transport, industry and defense-specialised BESS supplier Saft was bought by French energy group Total (now TotalEnergies) back in 2016.

Last year, automative giant Borg Warner bought German vehicle battery pack maker AKASOL while Tesla acquired Colorado-based SilLion which had been working on a high-loading silicon anode and electrode technology for battery cells.

It is Reliance’s seventh acquisition in the renewable energy space since September, most of which have been in the solar energy space which you can read about on our sister site PV Tech.

Continue reading

Battery storage units at Windcharger, Alberta’s first grid-scale project. Image: TransAlta via Twitter.

Three solar power plant projects are in development in Alberta, Canada, which will add nearly 300MW of battery storage to the province’s grid.

Alberta’s first grid-scale battery project, Windcharger, a 10MW/20MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) at a wind farm, was only brought online in late 2020 by developer TransAlta Renewables.

The province’s first solar-plus-storage project was only given approval in April of that year, combining 13.5MW of solar with 8MW/8MWh of batteries. 

Alberta-headquartered developer Greengate Power Corporation established a project subsidiary called Jurassic Solar to begin development on a project called Jurassic Solar+ in early 2021. 

Anticipated to have a 35 year lifetime, Jurassic Solar+ will be 216MWac of solar PV, combined with 80MW/80MWh of BESS using 60 inverter/transformer stations and connected to the Alberta Interconnected Electric System (AIES), the province’s transmission grid.  

It will be built on privately-owned land, and Greengate Power held an online ‘open house’ event to share information on the project with the community and local stakeholders last week. The developer hopes to gain permitting and approvals during this year, for construction to begin in Q2 2023 and come online around a year later. 

Meanwhile, Westbridge Energy Corporation, a greenfield renewable energy developer with its registered headquarters in Vancouver, is seeking approvals of its own for two large-scale solar PV plants colocated with batteries. 

Westbridge offered a corporate update to investors at the beginning of March which included notes on its Georgetown Solar and Sunnynook Solar projects. 

Georgetown will be a 278MWp solar plant, Sunnynook a 236MWp PV project. Each would share a site and interconnection to the grid with a 100MW BESS. 

The developer is preparing its application to the regulatory Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) for approval on Georgetown, having gotten a “low risk” rating for an environmental impact submission in February. It is also nearing the end of its Connection Process Stage 2 with grid operator Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).

Westbridge said further design and engineering activities on Georgetown will begin this quarter. Sunnynook is also in the Stage 2 Connection Process, with its remaining environmental studies, stakeholder engagement and other permitting activities to be initiated soon. 

“The recent volatility of power prices and intermittency of renewable energy generation has reiterated the increasing importance of developing storage projects,” Westbridge CEO Stefano Romano said. 

“Battery storage assets allow to store generation until it can be economically dispatched into the grid as well as providing services to the grid with the target of improving reliability, supporting renewables integration and deferring transmission upgrades.”

A handful of other interesting battery projects are in development in Alberta: vanadium flow battery provider Invinity Energy Systems was recently awarded a contract to supply a 2.8MW/8.4MWh system at a 21MWp solar plant in a project part-funded by the provincial government’s Emissions Reduction Alberta scheme. 

Another is a 180MW BESS which would be charged from a nearby hydroelectric plant which TransAlta is developing, called Watercharger.

Aerospace and defence tech company Lockheed Martin has said the first large-scale pilot project for its own proprietary flow battery technology will be at another Alberta solar PV plant. 

Continue reading

Gore Street’s Lower Road BESS project in the UK. Image: Gore Street.

London Stock Exchange-listed energy storage investor-developer Gore Street has acquired a portfolio of eight energy storage assets in Texas, US.

It follows the energy storage fund entering the German market with the acquisition of a 90% stake in a 28MWh operational energy storage asset in Cremzow earlier this month.

The portfolio of Texan assets have been acquired from Perfect Power Solutions Texas and have a total capacity of 79.2MW.

Three of the 9.9MW/20MWh systems, which use LG Energy Solution lithium-ion batteries, began operation in September 2021, with the remaining five expected to enter operation within the next year.

The battery energy storage assets will participate in Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), providing ancillary services in a state that has seen rapid expansion of intermittent renewable energy generation in recent years. This will primarily be through the response reserve service market, but also day ahead/real time trading to capture value from system volatility.

Following the acquisition, Gore Street has 262MW of operating assets, and a total portfolio of 708MW. For the Texan sites, a purchase agreement has been signed, and the acquisition is expected to close in 30 days.

“This acquisition presents a new high-quality counterparty, ERCOT, for our services within a significant market managing the flow of electric power to more than 26 million Texan customers,” Gore Street Capital CEO Alex O’Cinneide said.

“The portfolio itself presents a blend of operational and development assets which adds immediate revenue generating assets to our portfolio, whilst providing the opportunity to utilise our proven in house technical and development capabilities to deliver systems at a competitive cost in an attractive market.”

In related news, Gore Street just announced a deal with Nidec ASI for the provision of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services for its 49.9MW Ferrymuir and 79.9MW Stony battery storage sites in the UK.

Both assets are one-hour duration, beginning-of-life energy storage systems. Ferrymuir is located in county Fife, Scotland, while Stony is located close to Milton Keynes in southern England.

The contracts include the EPC arrangements and long-term service agreements for maintenance and operation, including availability and energy capacity warranties and stringent performance requirements to be demonstrated by Nidec ASI, Gore Street said.

Both assets are scheduled to be energised in Q4 2022, with both to achieve commercial operation in February 2023.

They will both operate in the UK’s Dynamic Containment and firm frequency response ancillary services markets, as well as and wholesale and Balancing Mechanism trading. They will also be able to participate in new services made available by transmission operator National Grid and distribution network operators, according to the company.

Gore Street-Nidec ASI story by Alice Grundy

Gore Street Texas portfolio story by Molly Lempriere

These originally appeared as two separate items on Solar Power Portal.

Continue reading