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NSG Group (Nippon Sheet Glass Co. Ltd.), a manufacturer of glass and glazing products for the architectural, automotive and creative technology glass sectors, and NEXT Energy Technologies Inc., makers of proprietary transparent photovoltaic (PV) coatings that transform commercial windows into solar panels, have announced a joint marketing effort between its NSG’s European subsidiary and NEXT.

The ongoing work targets the commercialization, manufacture and integration of NEXT’s transparent PV window technology into architectural window units designed to produce electricity to power commercial buildings. NSG’s involvement includes joint-market validation and ongoing technical support. NSG has also indicated its intent to incorporate NEXT’s technology into its insulated glazing units, with volume estimates for potential demand to serve the European commercial building market.

“NSG has been an industry champion of NEXT’s efforts since the company’s early days,” says Corey Hoven, Ph.D., founder and CTO at NEXT. “Thus, it’s especially rewarding to expand our relationship and introduce our proprietary PV coatings to NSG’s architectural and developer stakeholders.”

“We’ve informally collaborated with NEXT for several years, providing them with materials and technical feedback,” comments Alderlan Vitalino, NSG’s European value-added products director. “We’re excited to announce our relationship and work even more closely with NEXT to introduce their unique PV coatings into some of our largest commercial building markets.”

NEXT’s photovoltaic coatings are applied to commercial windows during the window fabrication process, integrating with existing manufacturers without disrupting established workflows and supply chains. This capital-efficient business model reduces risks to customers, removes barriers to adoption and accelerates speed to market, all while effectively extracting costs typically associated with the packaging and installation of solar energy solutions.

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Front cover image for PV Tech Power 30. Image: Solar Media / Adrian Cartwright, Planet Illustration.

The new edition of our downstream solar journal, PV Tech Power volume 30, is now available to download, featuring coverage of the solar industry’s efforts to bridge a looming skills gap.

The cover story of PV Tech Power vol. 30 assesses solar’s options when it comes to a shortage of workforce across several critical areas, from system designers to high voltage engineers, while also exploring gender diversity in the sector.

Meanwhile, ‘Storage & Smart Power’, the section of the journal contributed by the Energy-Storage.news team returns as always, with this edition including:

-Data-driven insurance for batteries: An unsung hero of the green energy transition

Charley Grimston, co-founder of specialist data-driven battery insurance technology company Altelium, writes about the importance of insurance in underpinning, and indeed underwriting, the success of the battery industry.

-Building a battery industry for Europe

Northvolt is building out dozens of gigawatt-hours of battery manufacturing in Europe and while its main off-takers will be the automotive industry, subsidiary Northvolt Systems is strongly committed to the stationary energy storage space, Northvolt Systems president Emad Zand writes.

-PROJECT BRIEFING: World’s largest lithium- vanadium hybrid BESS trialled at Oxford renewables hub pilot

Energy-Storage.news writer Cameron Murray takes a close look at Energy Superhub Oxford in the UK, which features the world’s biggest lithium-vanadium hybrid battery storage plant.

You can download your digital copy of PV Tech Power 30 via our subscription service here.

PV Tech Premium subscribers receive every copy of PV Tech Power as part of their subscription as soon as they are published, as well as exclusive content on PV Tech, weekly briefing emails and a host of other benefits.

For more details on PV Tech Premium, including how to subscribe, click here.

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Eraring coal power station in New South Wales, Australia. Image: CSIRO.

Australian energy retailer Origin Energy has outlined how a virtual power plant (VPP) and large-scale battery storage will allow it to replace coal in its power mix.

Origin has been planning for the retirement of Eraring, a 2,880MW black coal power plant, proposing to build a 700MW battery energy storage system (BESS) project on the site instead and issuing a call for suitably qualified firms to install the BESS early last year. 

Earlier this year, the company said it planned to close Eraring down in 2025, not 2032 as originally intended. Origin cited that coal was no longer economically able to compete with the emergence of renewables and now storage in Australia, particularly in the revised and updated structures of the National Electricity Market (NEM). 

In a presentation to investors this morning, Origin Energy executives said the battery storage project will be built in two stages: an initial 460MW stage 1, with a later 240MW expansion in stage 2. 

A Final Investment Decision is expected on stage 1 during this year. Although initially Origin had announced that the entire 700MW project would be four-hour duration, the company said today that stage 1 will be two-hour duration (460MW/920MWh).

The battery technology would be used for intra-day energy arbitrage, reducing capacity hedging costs for the company’s retail business and in Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) and other ancillary services markets.  

Coal retirement frees up Opex

Firming capacity would also be provided by Origin’s VPP, which currently has around 200MW of assets under control. The VPP, which aggregates together customers’ distributed energy resources (DER) like batteries, hot water systems and air conditioning units, provides very low-cost capacity which can partially replace Eraring, the company said. 

It aims to grow the VPP to around 2GW, using it like a peaking asset to move energy load from high demand periods to low demand periods. While it requires the enrolment of a large customer base, the VPP asset tends to have very low or even no upfront capital costs to establish, as well as being low cost to operate. 

Closure of the Eraring coal plant will also allow Origin to grow low cost renewable generation, the company said, whether buying in from the NEM or building or contracting for renewable energy projects.

It is also considering further battery storage projects as well as the possible expansion of its Shoalhaven pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant. Further investments in batteries could include building the company’s own projects or contracting for capacity from third party-owned assets.  

Origin’s presentation noted that the company holds sites with grid connections across the mainland NEM regions already, due to its existing fleet of generation assets. 

However, a large amount of balancing will continue to come from Origin’s 3GW fleet of thermal peaking capacity plants. These remain cheap to own and are expected to be called on more frequently as coal retires. 

Former coal plant sites are being considered for redevelopment with solar-plus-storage or standalone energy storage projects in parts of the world where coal is in its most rapid decline, including parts of the Mid-Western US.  

In Australia, another integrated energy group EnergyAustralia said in March 2021 that it would build a 350MW/1,400MWh BESS at the site of Yallourn, a coal power station in Victoria scheduled for retirement in 2028. 

In the case of both Yallourn and Eraring, cost of running the coal power plants has been cited as another reason for their effective obsolescence in the market, with Yallourn costing EnergyAustralia about AU$200 million (US$147 million) to AU$300 million per year to run and Eraring costing Origin about AU$95 million a year. 

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Tesla’s gigafactory near Berlin, September 2021. Image: Michael Wolf.

With Europe set to reach 789.2GWh of lithium-ion battery gigafactory production by 2030 according to new Benchmark data, what does the US need to do to keep up as both race to prevent China completely monopolising the sector as it did with solar?

Panellists speaking on Day 1 of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) National Energy Storage Summit yesterday (8 March) agreed that Europe is far ahead of its Atlantic neighbour on getting its gigafactory pipeline up and running – despite some recent forecasts pegging the two markets’ 2030 expected capacity figures closely. So what needs to happen to make that pipeline a reality?

Creating a mindset that says it’s possible

The good news is that the current US administration is bullish on getting there, said Robert H. Edwards, Jr. from the the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.

“We are uniform across the Administration in believing that our United States innovative energy sector, with some assistance from the federal government, will be able to establish one of the premier battery manufacturing ecosystems in the world,” he said.

That was in response to a good point from Ilka von Dalwigk, Policy Manager at InnoEnergy and the European Battery Alliance. She said that when the Alliance launched in 2017, some argued it was too late to launch a battery industry as Asia had already won, while some said it was too early considering the future generation of batteries like solid-state would be a better bet.

“I think there was a lack of understanding of the speed and scale of this transition and one of the major achievements of the European Battery Alliance initiative has been a change in mindset, to believing we can become a part of and even a winner in this transition,” she said.

Research from information provider Benchmark Mineral Intelligence’s Lithium ion Battery Gigafactory Assessment, which supplied the 2030 figure, points to the existing results of that change in mindset. Four of the world’s seven tier one producers of automative-grade lithium-ion batteries have gigafactories in Europe and, once Northvolt’s gigafactory in Sweden is active, that will be five.

Consider ecosystem around the gigafactory and next-gen applications

Northvolt’s expansion on both continents made panellist Landon Mossburg, its America President, uniquely placed on this topic.

He said that the main challenges for getting gigafactory projects off the ground are around finding a suitable site, procuring the necessary amount of clean power and recruiting the adequately skilled workforce. But the challenge goes beyond just the factory itself.

“If you look at Asia, they’ve got about a 10-15 year head start on us in terms of capital equipment, suppliers, raw materials, even things like grid elements and logistics. These factories are just the tip of the iceberg. You need an ecosystem of suppliers that take a very long time to develop and are highly specialised,” he said.

Another major challenge is being ahead of the curve on the future high-volume applications for batteries, for which he highlighted aviation as one, and warned that there were already signs that Asia is moving much faster than anywhere else on this. It is important not to underestimate the challenge, be fully aware of how much capital, partnership, and up-front planning would be needed.

“But I think what’s super encouraging to me is looking at what’s happened in Europe which is an outstanding success story, and I start to see that happening here in the US as well. So I think we’re in a good spot,” he said, finishing on a positive note.

And above all, money

The US federal government has brought in numerous financial schemes to help projects get off the ground, said Monica Gorman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing in the US Department of Commerce International Trade Administration. She explained the significance of the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries and its goals, which you can read about here.

But the administration is also keen to do this in a way which helps disadvantaged and disenfranchised communities, especially making sure the transition doesn’t create more post-industrial regions which become unattractive to private capital. She highlighted a US$4 million EV manufacturing scheme in Detroit which created 810 jobs, saved 300, and generated US$45 million in private investment.

She also pointed out the need to invest in the countries semiconductor production sector with the bipartisan Innovation Act, to much nodding of heads from other panellists. “Because if you want batteries and electric vehicles, you have to have semiconductors as well.”

On the same topic of funding, Edwards said the current dearth of substantial gigafactory announcements on US soil would change by the end of this year.

“We currently have US$10 billion of loan applications for battery manufacturing plants. These are greenfield plants in the United States. These plants include both manufacturing plants for lithium-ion batteries for use in vehicles and trucks and transportation generally, as well as manufacturing capacity for energy storage for stationary storage applications for the grid, so before the end of the year you will see some announcements from the loan programmes office that will signal the administration’s financial commitment to build these greenfield battery projects,” he said.

Europe’s 2030 gigafactory pipeline

Information provider group Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said Europe is on track for 27 gigafactories from 18 battery cell producers by 2030.

The most significant will be Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory, which will commission commercial cell production in 2023 but reach an annual capacity of 75GWh by 2026 and 125GWh by 2030. That will make it the largest in the world behind its counterpart in Austin, Texas.

By 2030, Benchmark anticipated Europe’s top five battery makers by capacity to be:

Tesla (Germany): 125GWhNorthvolt (Sweden x 2): 92 GWCATL (Germany): 80 GWhLGES(Poland): 67 GWhACC (Total/Stellantis) (Germany, France, Italy): 64 GWh

The 789.2GWh capacity by 2030 would give Europe a 14% market share of the global 5,454Gwh lithium-ion battery production market, Benchmark said. Clean Energy Associates’ figures, referred to earlier on, gave Europe a slightly higher (16%) share of a slightly smaller market (4,764GWh).

Benchmark says Europe will grow its capacity more than six-fold (500%) between end-2022 and 2030, China by 220% and the USA by 575%.

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One of SK’s EV battery plants in Hungary, Europe. Image: Sk Innovation.

Ascend Elements will recycle manufacturing scrap from SK Innovation’s lithium battery gigafactories in Georgia, US, while chemicals company BASF has bought land in Canada for a cathode active materials factory and recycling plant. 

Ascend Elements — formerly known as Battery Resourcers — announced this morning that it will recycle lithium-ion battery cell and module manufacturing scrap from the Korean maker’s production lines in Commerce Business Park.

Currently under construction, the battery company’s SK Battery Americas division is building more than 20GWh of annual production capacity at the two sites, investing a reported US$2.6 billion to get them up and running by the end of 2023. 

As reported by Energy-Storage.news in January, Ascend Elements is building the largest single site lithium battery recycling plant in North America, in Covington, Georgia, close to the SK Innovation factories. Ascend claimed its recycling processes can recover 98% of battery materials and return them to the supply chain from the facility, which will open in August. 

“People often think lithium-ion battery recycling is just for end-of-life batteries, but waste from the battery cell manufacturing process is the biggest segment of the battery recycling market right now,” Ascend Elements CEO Michael O’Kronley said. 

“SKBA is embracing sustainability and reducing its impact on the environment by recycling every bit of scrap battery material it produces.”

The recycling company also touted that active cathode materials produced by its proprietary “Hydro-to-Cathode’ process was found to outperform new cathode materials, as referenced in a study published in scientific journal Joule.

Ascend further claimed the process could be 93% cleaner than mining and producing from raw materials, and at much lower cost. 

While the initial focus is largely going to be on electric vehicle (EV) batteries, Ascend Elements told the site that it also wanted to process as much material from the stationary energy storage system (ESS) sector as it can. Materials produced from recycling will likely find their way into ESS projects too, through the company selling them back to cell manufacturers. 

It is a similar story for the SK Innovation deal, an Ascend spokesperson told Energy-Storage.news.

“While we are recycling EV battery manufacturing scrap for SK Battery America, our innovative Hydro-to-Cathode recycling process works well with ESS batteries too,” the spokesperson commented. 

“We are currently recycling ESS batteries for several organisations. Additionally, the customised cathode material that we produce from the Hydro-to-Cathode process can be used by battery manufacturers making ESS solutions.”

SK Innovation also has a partnership in place with energy storage system integrator and manufacturer IHI Terrasun which could see the maker’s battery cells used in IHI projects in the US starting this year.

‘US needs recycling policy’

Yesterday, at an event hosted online by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), US Department of Energy director of the vehicle technologies office David Howell said that “significant effort” must be put into developing recycling capabilities.

“The supply chain is more than gigafactories. You need to look at the entire supply chain from upstream material supply, refined materials all the way through battery component manufacturing, like cathode, anode to electrolytes, and key components like that — cell production, pack production,” Howell said. 

“If we want to realise a sustainable ecosystem, we definitely need to put significant effort in recycling spent lithium batteries, getting those spent lithium batteries back into the supply chain. And those materials particularly represent a key domestic supply of materials going forward.”

Howell said he “could not stress enough,” the importance of recycling, especially for materials for which the US did not have access to adequate natural resources domestically. 

“We really need a national recycling policy,” he said, highlighting that the DoE’s goal is to establish a recycling ecosystem that collects 90% of the spent lithium batteries. Efforts could begin with consumer electronics and be mapped to EVs and grid storage, Howell suggested.

BASF maps supply chain integration at Canada site

European chemicals company BASF is targeting having its cathode active materials (CAM) and recycling plant in Bécancour, Quebec, Canada up and running in 2025. 

BASF already manufactures CAM in North America and said last week that it has signed agreements to secure land at a site between Montreal and Quebec City on the Saint Lawrence River for its expansion plan. 

The selected site will allow it to use hydropower to help power operations and can be well-connected with the company’s global metal sourcing network, BASF claimed. Provisional plans are in place to add an intermediates base metal refinery for nickel and cobalt, as well as recycling facilities for all battery metals. 

The site will have space to expand up to 100kt CAM production capacity per year, including supply of precursor cathode active materials (PCAM). Plans remain subject to necessary regulatory approvals, BASF said. 

“With new investments in electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure being announced continuously in North America, we are pleased to pursue our own investment in the region,” BASF Catalysts division president Dr Peter Schuhmacher said.

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Image: DEPCOM.

US solar EPC firm DEPCOM Power has 650MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in execution.

The portfolio adds to 4GW of utility-scale solar PV projects under the Arizona-headquartered company’s belt, and a further gigawatt under construction and in pre-construction stages. DEPCOM also has 2GW of solar PV assets to look after in operations and maintenance (O&M) contracts.

The announcement comes a few months after Koch Industries’ subsidiary Koch Engineered Solutions (KES) acquired DEPCOM in a deal which closed late last November.  

The move marked KES’ entry into the renewables space, with the acquiring company citing the growing competitiveness of unsubsidised utility-scale solar as a major driver behind the move. KES VP of business development Don Brown noted DEPCOM’s “impressive growth over the last few years”. 

The new owners’ reach and investments in a wide range of areas will be leveraged by the EPC firm’s energy storage division, adding bankability to its fully-integrated technology and services offerings: the company offers energy optimisation, access to top-tier battery equipment, integrated energy management system (EMS) and long-term service agreements (LTSA).

DEPCOM claimed it has access to suppliers of certified technologies that de-risks procurement and gets it competitive pricing, financial energy optimisation that can optimise battery life and improve IRR, provides 24/7 monitoring, EMS with SCADA controls and fully-wrapped LTSAs. 

“We partner hand-in-hand with asset owners to deliver technology-agnostic systems through an end-to-end solution that reduces complexity and risks for maximum revenue and ROI,” the company’s executive VP for energy storage Steve Chun said.   

CEO Johnnie Taul said that recent investments by Koch Industries into areas including battery recycling (with over US$100 million invested into Li-Cycle), next-generation battery technology (with investments into zinc battery maker Eos, iron flow battery company ESS Inc and a partnership on building US advanced battery gigafactories with Norway’s FREYR Battery) and global logistics would make the end-to-end solution offered by DEPCOM a “compelling fully integrated solution”.

Koch Strategic Platforms, one of the industrial conglomerate’s venture capital (VC) investment arms, also recently committed to invest US$150 million in Aspen Aerogels, a company making a ‘thermal runaway barrier’ gel technology.

DEPCOM did not reveal the customers or locations of its portfolio, the applications they will serve or the types of market they will participate in. Energy-Storage.news has made enquiries on this and some other points to the company but had not received a reply at time of publication.

In an interview on the EPC company’s corporate blog, DEPCOM Power chief engineer Rob Rynar said the company worked with Tesla on a recent solar-plus-storage project, combining a 3MW solar array with a 3MWh Tesla Megapack BESS unit. 

Rynar said the fully integrated design of the Megapack, including cells, inverters, HVAC and controls meant it required “virtually no field assembly,” which differentiated Tesla from many of its competitors. 

“There is little debate about the immense future of energy storage’s role in global electrical systems,” Rynar added. 

“The benefits that ESS can bring to all levels of the electrical transmission, distribution and demand side are numerous. Not only does BESS compliment the intermittent renewable energy capacity, but it also allows itself to be a backup in case of grid failure.”

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FTC Solar’s 2P Voyager Tracker Nevada

FTC Solar has co-authored a whitepaper with wind engineering experts RWDI and structural engineering firm Engineered Power Solutions (EPS) on the wind mitigation strategy of FTC’s unique single axis tracker, Voyager. This strategy – combining a zero-degree wind stow position with proprietary dampening technology – was independently characterized through wind tunnel testing carried out by RWDI. The result is a solar tracker platform that alleviates the effects of static and dynamic wind loading, preventing catastrophic failure and revenue loss.

“Due to the high level of torsional damping in the model from the dampers, divergent oscillations indicative of aerodynamic instability were not observed in the configurations with at least one damper per half,” states RWDI’s report.

Through testing wind speeds between 105 and 150 mph, RWDI determined that the Voyager tracker remains stable. This unique damping technology is essential as it prevents wind from affecting the surface of the modules, which can ultimately lead to catastrophic failures.

“These large surface area modules with the frames at the outer edge, behave dynamically in new ways that traditional design approaches can’t analyze. This can lead to microcracking and cell failure that is not visible to the naked eye,” says Nagendra Cherukupalli, chief technical officer at FTC Solar. “To alleviate these issues, FTC Solar is pioneering the use of multi-body dynamics simulation to fully characterize the dynamic behavior of single axis trackers.”

To prevent wind damage during photovoltaic plant construction, FTC Solar attaches dampers to each row before the modules and sets the row to zero-degree stow, meaning no power or commissioning is required to protect the row from wind effects. Ultimately, this allows each row to be shielded and keeps installers in the field safe.

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UL, a global safety science leader, has released a report, co-authored with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), titled “Cybersecurity Certification Recommendations for Interconnected Grid Edge Devices and Inverter Based Resources.” The report includes recommendations that enable distributed energy resources (DER) and inverter-based resources (IBRs) to maintain a strong cybersecurity posture.

With support from DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, UL will continue working with NREL on developing requirements to support cybersecurity certification standards for DERs and IBRs. NREL and UL are currently working on an outline of investigation for a standard that will apply to energy storage and generation technologies on the distribution grid, including photovoltaic inverters, electric vehicle chargers, wind turbines, fuel cells and other resources essential to advancing grid operations.

“Currently, there are no cybersecurity certification requirements to which manufacturers and vendors can certify their DER and IBR devices against an established and widely adopted cybersecurity certification program,” says Kenneth Boyce, senior director for the Principal Engineering, Industrial group at UL. “The development of these new cybersecurity certification requirements will provide a single unified approach that can be taken as a reference for performing the testing and certification of DERs before being deployed and while in the field. Drafting comprehensive certification requirements with peer review requires effective leadership and stakeholder participation.”

These new requirements will prioritize cybersecurity enhancements for power systems dealing with high penetration inverter-based resources, including those interfacing with bulk power systems for periods of instantaneous high wind, solar and hybrid/storage generation. It will also help ensure cybersecurity is designed into new IBR and DER systems.

“A national or international cybersecurity certification standard can aid industry stakeholders to evaluate and validate the cybersecurity posture of their DER or IBR devices before they are connected to the electric grid,” states Danish Saleem, senior researcher for energy cyber-physical system security at NREL. “UL supports the development of a cybersecurity certification program because, not only will robust cybersecurity be introduced to the electric grid, but it will also help to ensure the concept of security by design is being followed for new DER systems.”

“Drafting consensus-based cybersecurity certification standards requires effective leadership and regular participation from stakeholders,” adds Saleem. “NREL and UL can streamline this effort by utilizing in-house expertise and state-of-the-art testing facilities and by bringing industry experts to the UL Standards Technical Panel. By collaborating with UL on this technical report, we have established a valuable working relationship that will strengthen our ability to develop the forthcoming cybersecurity certification standard for DER and IBR devices.”

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DESRI’s Cuyama solar project in California

D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI), a renewable energy producer in North America, has signed Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s (SMUD) first combined solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) sized at 200 MW AC and 400 MWh.

The combined solar and BESS generation facility in northern California will be located on the east side of Sacramento County. The project is expected to reach commercial operation no later than 2024.

“Our DESRI team is pleased to continue our longstanding partnership with SMUD on the development of this landmark clean power project, especially considering the groundbreaking size and battery storage integration,” says Hy Martin, chief development officer of DESRI.  “This first-of-its-kind project took significant effort by all project partners and shows SMUD’s leadership in its drive towards carbon-free electricity generation in coming years.”

“Partnerships are a key component to SMUD reaching our 2030 Zero Carbon goals,” comments Frankie McDermott, SMUD’s COO.  “We committed to using every tool in the toolbox, and innovative projects like this that combine solar and battery storage will enable us to provide the region with clean and reliable power as we transition away from natural gas resources.”

Affiliates of Bona Terra Energy, LLC assisted as co-developers in the project.

As part of the project, the SMUD Clean Energy Community Leaders – Mark Gall Memorial Scholarship will be funded by DESRI. The scholarship will help cultivate local workforce talent and support students in the greater Sacramento area who demonstrate interest in renewable energy development. 

“DESRI is thrilled to support emerging young leaders interested in becoming part of the clean energy economy in and around Sacramento as the renewable energy industry grows in the region, and celebrate the public servants at SMUD for their commitment to renewable energy,” notes Hy Martin.

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A New Hampshire Solar Garden community solar project in Milton, N.H.

Luminia, formerly SD Renewables, has entered a joint development agreement with New Hampshire Solar Garden to secure funding for its pipeline of projects, including five community solar projects in Maine for a combined capacity of 15 MW. Through its financial offering and proprietary technology platform, Luminia provides New Hampshire Solar Garden with access to intermediate and long-term financing.

“Community solar is essential for many parties in the transition to renewable energy,” says Andrew Kellar, founder of New Hampshire Solar Garden. “We are thrilled to team up with Luminia in forming a long-term partnership that increases our access to capital, allowing us to accelerate momentum for a healthier planet. As Maine strives to become a carbon-neural state by 2045, securing the funding and resources needed to turn that vision into reality is what Luminia brings to the table – and much more.”

The Maine community solar farms – located in Baldwin, Berwick, Brewer, Eliot and Standish – allow residents to purchase credits from a remote solar PV system.

“New Hampshire Solar Garden has been an excellent partner in the community solar market, in addition to their commercial and industrial projects, and we are excited to be a part of Maine’s commitment to becoming carbon-neutral,” mentions David Field, co-managing partner of Luminia. “Through collaboration with our partners, our goal is to make community solar as effortless as possible by streamlining the financing and development process for both officials and our channel partners.”

“Community solar takes a cooperative and mutually beneficial approach to solar projects with Maine communities,” states Matthew Fricker, chairman of the planning board in Baldwin. “Community solar projects create jobs, reduce climate-damaging emissions and decrease reliance on fossil fuels. They also enable towns, schools, businesses and homeowners to save money on their electric bills, all while increasing tax revenues.”

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