Dave Ranhoff

Enphase Energy Inc. is launching a partnership that enables Enphase Energy Systems, powered by IQ Microinverters and IQ Batteries, to participate in Swell Energy Inc.’s distributed, virtual power plant (VPP) programs in California, New York and Hawaii.

The partnership will enhance solar and battery access along with choice for energy users while delivering critical resources to the local grid. It also aims to expand solar and battery deployment in key energy markets. Swell’s virtual power plants will now be available to homeowners with Enphase Energy Systems that include IQ Batteries.

“Our partnership with Enphase enables homeowners to interact with the power grid in new ways and maximize the value delivered by their home batteries,” says Suleman Khan, CEO of Swell Energy. “The combined offer puts participating customers in control of their electrons with greater functionality, automation, and value within the transactive grid of the future.”

Swell’s VPPs aggregate distributed energy resources and provide GridRevenue to customers utilizing their home batteries for savings and security, while also supporting overall grid reliability. By creating a cohesive network of solar powered batteries in a region, VPPs can provide a variety of services to utilities. Swell’s VPP programs serve utilities, wholesale markets and customers alike in a more participatory and equitable manner.

“Together with Swell, we share a mission to provide a world-class customer experience and cutting edge, smart technology,” states Dave Ranhoff, chief commercial officer at Enphase Energy. “Swell’s programs make it even more compelling for homeowners to choose Enphase Energy Systems, so they can reliably and efficiently run their lives on clean energy, protect against grid outages, and better manage costs.”

​​Enphase delivers an enhanced solar-plus-battery solution which does not expose installers or homeowners to high-voltage DC. Enphase IQ Batteries feature Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery chemistry, which provides a long cycle life and smooth operation through excellent thermal stability. The batteries are equipped with Enphase Power Start technology, which also helps seamlessly power-up air conditioners and well-pumps. Homeowners have insight into their systems, along with the ability to go off-grid during power outages through the Enphase App. Enphase IQ Batteries accommodate over-the-air software upgrades and come with a 10-year limited warranty.

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EDPR NA Distributed Generation LLC, the distribution business unit of EDP Renewables, has partnered with the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) as part of its Solarize Philly Program to help expand access to onsite renewable energy solutions for business, commercial and industrial properties throughout the city.

Launched by PEA in 2017, Solarize Philly is Philadelphia’s first city-wide solarize program. With a goal of expanding the city’s onsite solar market, the program aims to make the process of installing solar as easy and affordable as possible while also supporting solar training at the School District of Philadelphia and improving access to clean energy across the city’s neighborhoods. Since the program’s launch, more than $12 million has been invested in communities across Philadelphia, helping improve access to clean energy throughout the city.

“At EDPR NA DG, we’re dedicated to providing equitable access to local, reliable, and cost-saving energy, regardless of where you live or do business,” says Richard Dovere, EDPR NA DG’s chief investment officer. “We’re delighted to be a part of Solarize Philly’s vital mission in supporting businesses on their net-zero carbon journey through the adoption of onsite renewable energy generation.” 

EDPR NA DG was selected through a public solicitation process to be one of Solarize Philly’s dedicated partners focused on providing commercial, industrial and real estate property owners full turnkey onsite energy solutions. Technology solutions will range from distributed solar to co-located storage, electric vehicle charging, micro-grid, energy demand/energy resilience and energy efficiency technologies. This year is the first time Solarize Philly Program is open to retail, commercial and industrial entities throughout Philadelphia.

“Businesses are vital to the continued growth and development of Philadelphia,” states Emily Schapira, president and CEO of PEA. “We’re excited for this collaboration with EDPR NA DG to reduce energy costs for our citizens’ businesses, support the community through the creation of good-paying jobs to bolster the local solar industry, and assist our businesses in minimizing their carbon footprint.”

“The opportunity to have businesses power themselves by local clean energy whilst helping to spur additional 21st-century businesses, create jobs, and provide a more resilient energy future for Philly is a ‘triple win’,” comments Matt Stern, senior director of commercial programs at the Philadelphia Energy Authority.

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The US has energy storage system assembly sites like this one pictured in Oxnard, California, but precious few facilities higher upstream in the supply chain. Image: SimpliPhi Power.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has provided dates and a partial breakdown of grants totalling US$2.9 billion to boost the production of batteries for the electric vehicle (EV) and energy storage markets, as promised by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal.

The money will be provided by DOE branch the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and will go towards battery materials refining and production plants, battery cell and pack manufacturing and recycling facilities.

EERE has released two notices of intent (NOI) to issue funding opportunity announcements (FOA) on or about April-May 2022, it says. The estimated period of performance for each award will be approximately three to four years, it adds.

The announcement is the culmination of years of the US wanting to have more of a hand in the battery supply chain. Most countries including the US get the vast majority of their EV and battery energy storage system (BESS) batteries from Asia, notably China.

Funding specifics

The first FOA, the ‘Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Funding Opportunity Announcement,’ will be the bulk of the money at up to US$2.8 billion. It has set minimum funding amounts for specific areas. The first three are in battery material processing:

– A minimum of US$100 million for new commercial-scale battery material processing facilities in the United States 

– A minimum of US$50 million for projects to retool, retrofit, or expand one or more qualifying existing battery material processing facilities located in the United States 

– A minimum of US$50 million for demonstration projects in the United States for the processing of battery materials 

The second three are in battery component manufacturing and recycling: 

– A minimum of US$100 million for new commercial-scale advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, or recycling facilities 

– A minimum of US$50 million for projects to retool, retrofit, or expand one or more qualifying existing facilities for advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, and recycling 

– A minimum of US$50 million demonstration projects for advanced battery component manufacturing, advanced battery manufacturing, and recycling 

All facilities must be in the US. 

The second, smaller FOA, the “Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) Electric Drive Vehicle Battery Recycling and Second Life Applications”, will make US$40 million available for ‘Recycling Processing and Reintegration into the Battery Supply Chain’ and US$20 million for ‘Second Use Scale-Up Demonstration Projects’. 

The US$2.9 billion is one of a few pots of money promised by the bill, including half a billion dollars for energy storage demonstration projects via the US$20 billion Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and another US$3 billion in grants for grid flexibility.

Energy-storage.news sources were uniformly positive about the announcement back in November, but all highlighted that introducing a tax credit for energy storage investment would be the real game changer for the sector. 

The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will provide a total of US$62 billion for the country’s push to a cleaner energy sector.

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Zinc fuel cell module at Zinc8’s facilities in North America. Image: Zinc8.

Zinc: versatile, abundant and very promising for energy storage across a range of applications and technologies. From data centres to long-duration storage for the grid, this metal looks increasingly likely to play a part in the future of the energy transition, writes Dr Josef Daniel-Ivad from the the Zinc Battery Initiative.

Did you know that Allesandro Volta relied on zinc to build the world’s first battery two centuries ago?

Or that the first secondary zinc-bromine battery was patented in 1885? Or that the father of electricity Thomas Edison patented a nickel-zinc battery in 1901?

Despite this promising start, when zinc batteries faced the challenge of short lifespans, competing technologies, such as lithium-ion and lead acid, became the stationary storage darlings of the 1990’s. 

Now with 30 years of innovations under their proverbial battery belts, zinc battery developers are innovating their way around the challenges and are poised to compete effectively with their less safe and sustainable competitors. 

The key challenges to the zinc batteries of yore with alkaline electrolytes were zincate solubility, shape change, gassing, dry-out, capacity loss and dendrite formation, which resulted typically in associated capacity fade and a limited cycle life. 

The new breed of zinc rechargeable batteries has overcome these old problems with innovative solutions. The issue of shape change, capacity loss and dendritic growth has been resolved by applying engineered negative electrodes containing nucleation and migration stabilisation additives that work symbiotically with novel electrolytes to stabilise the zincate ion. 

The dry-out problem has been overcome by integrating gassing suppressant additives into the negative electrode and incorporating recombinant devices into the battery that facilitate the recombination of oxygen and hydrogen formed from the decomposition of water.

Solving these key issues puts zinc batteries in a much better position to compete in the stationary storage market.

Some new zinc battery developers have moved away from alkaline electrolytes altogether and are applying a mild acidic to neutral electrolyte and harnessing the reversible 2-valent zinc ion reaction on stabilised zinc metal surfaces.

Another novel approach in development is the use of a 3D zinc micro-sponge electrode that overcomes the dendrite problem by providing a stable 3D electrode structure that does not change form and therefore avoids separator shorts.

Already, zinc batteries have found their storage sweet spot in providing data centre backup power. The massive amounts of data being generated and stored each day mean that battery technology needs to evolve to support this crucial sector.

Enter Nickel-Zinc Batteries!

Nickel Zinc batteries are safe, non-toxic, and non-flammable. With lithium-ion batteries, a single cell failure can disable a storage system, but Nickel Zinc batteries safely operate at a high range of temperatures. They also deliver higher power, operate in a wider temperature range, and require less maintenance.

These batteries are ready for commercial prime time; for example, nickel-zinc batteries have been been specified by sustainable data centre developer Wyoming Hyperscale White Box, which plans to commission its first development site in Aspen, Wyoming, later this year.

This data centre will be the first of its kind to utilise sustainable nickel-zinc battery-based uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) as its sole source of backup energy storage, complementing its commitment to minimising its environmental footprint.

Long-duration zinc for the grid

Zinc batteries also are finding their niche in large-scale, stationary storage applications, where development has entered the demonstration phase.

Zinc can provide power when the sun doesn’t shine and when the wind doesn’t blow. Competing lithium technologies are limited for short duration discharge due to high-cost issues, but zinc batteries offer the ability to release power back into the grid for a few hours, or even whole days at a time, as their intrinsic low-cost, non-flammable, safe and abundant materials do not have the same cost-constraints.

For example, zinc-air flow batteries can be designed to fit any size system and provide the lowest cost of storage for long-duration applications, even up to 100 hours, as the duration can be easily selected by the size of the zinc storage tank.

Zinc8 Energy recently announced that it will demonstrate its zinc-air flow batteries for a 15-hour long duration storage demonstration project in a New York apartment complex that has solar renewable power.

Another type of zinc-air battery that is configured in a non-flow setup by e-Zinc will be put to the duration test in a demonstration project for the commercial and industrial (C&I) market funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC). A 125-acre commercial greenhouse site in Camarillo that presently hosts a 1MW solar array will add 40kW with 24 to 48 hours of storage duration.

During normal times, it will capture solar generation to discharge during peak hours and to power irrigation at night. When blackouts loom, it can shift to backup power mode in long-duration mode. This installation is expected to go into service by end of 2022. 

Within the next few years, when more and more demonstration project come online, zinc-air is expected to prove its ability to provide multi-day backup power and compete economically. As a truly green bonus, zinc-air offers a sustainable, eco-friendly alternative to the gas or diesel generators still commonly used for off-grid applications.

Building and home energy storage are two other areas where ‘Think Zinc’ has become a trend.

Zinc batteries offer a fire-safe and sustainable alternative as well provide power in the event of an outage – with capabilities ranging to multiple days of electricity supply. In particular, the same safe zinc-manganese dioxide chemistry found in AA household alkaline batteries that essentially everyone knows and uses, proves ideal for backup power of homes or other buildings for as long as two days when re-engineered for this purpose.

Another type of household battery most are familiar with, the zinc-carbon or heavy duty battery, was reimagined with new research to yield a technology that is mainly referred to as zinc-ion, which works much like lithium-ion batteries but uses all benign material and is water-based with no risk of fire. 

These home storage technologies are well into the demonstration phase and could be available commercially soon.

Zinc-bromine batteries are another category of Zn-based technologies that fit very well in the 3-to-12-hour storage duration range. 

They come in two varieties: flow and non-flow configurations. Since the energy is stored in a zinc bromide solution, and the battery electrodes are mere means to facilitate the electrochemical redox reactions, they have a very long-life expectancy and don’t have cycle life limitations per se. 

An example for a recent zinc-flow installation is the deployment of a 2MWh energy storage system by Redflow in California. The energy storage system is designed to store up to 2MWh of energy and reduce peak energy use at Anaergia’s Rialto Bioenergy Facility as part of the facility’s microgrid. 

Non-flow zinc-bromine battery developers have booked orders for their systems in excess of 700MWh for deployments starting this year.

2MWh of Redflow zinc-bromine flow battery energy storage and Dynapower inverters at the Anaergia biogas facility, California. Image: Redflow.

Abundant material to meet a global need

The biggest challenge facing all energy storage sources today is whether energy storage solutions available today can be scaled to the terawatt scale to meet growing demands. BloombergNEF’s 2021 Global Energy Storage Outlook estimated that by 2030 one terawatt of new stationary storage capacity needs to be added, and that is 20 times more than what was available in 2020.

Fortunately, abundant zinc is ready to meet this challenge. Unlike lithium and other elements, zinc is found around the world and in large supply.

The supply chain for zinc can be completely westernised if required, as it is globally mined and refined in 50 countries, establishing a secure, conflict-free, and sustainable supply chain. Further, zinc is very versatile when it comes to recycling, and many options are available for reuse or repurpose. 

Given zinc’s abundance and zinc battery innovation, the zinc battery market is expected to grow rapidly.

According to the BloombergNEF New Energy Outlook report, the energy storage market is expected to grow exponentially to 1,028 GWh by 2030, and the zinc battery market will grow to 10% of that in 2030.

That’s a huge potential market share, one zinc batteries are prepared for with their safety, sustainability, and competitive technologies.

The first battery invented is back and ready to claim its growing place in the energy storage chain. 

About the Author

Dr. Josef Daniel-Ivad is Manager of the Zinc Battery Initiative, the voice of the growing zinc battery industry. ZBI formed in 2020 to represent zinc batteries with their many unique chemistries and applications. Members of ZBI include some of the leading companies in the zinc battery sector, including ZincFive, Zinc8, Salient Energy, Urban Electric Power, e-Zinc, Redflow, Enzinc, Enerpoly, ZAF Energy Systems, AEsir Technologies, Inc., and Imprint Energy.

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Image: Swell Energy.

Swell Energy, a US company specialising in virtual power plant (VPP) projects aggregating residential solar PV and battery storage, has launched a distributed energy resources management system (DERMS) software platform. 

Swell Energy has won VPP contracts representing more than 300MWh of battery storage, with utilities Souther California Edison (SCE) and Hawaiian Electric Co (HECO), as well as a smaller project with Con Edison in New York. It has raised US$450 million in financing to date. 

Last week the company announced the launch of GridAmp, Swell’s proprietary DERMS platform which will do the technological heavy lifting to aggregate distributed energy resources (DERs) like battery storage and rooftop solar arrays to form much larger energy or grid services resources. 

The Hawaii VPP project will be the first to see GridAmp brought onboard. The project has already been approved by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission and will see 80MW of new and existing customer-sited resources across three islands in the Pacific US state leveraged to help HECO. 

The software uses optimisation algorithms and machine learning models to inform and automate the operation of aggregated systems. It can maximise revenues for both the utility and the end-customer, across multiple value streams, Swell Energy claimed. This includes co-optimisation across multiple ’stacked’ value streams that come from delivered different applications. 

In an in-depth two part interview series with Energy-Storage.news last year, Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan said that one of the main drivers for the Hawaii project is to allow HECO to maximise its use of wind energy that might otherwise be lost. 

Home battery storage systems will be charged with wind energy considered surplus to grid requirements at times of overproduction.

“So we’re basically helping HECO not clip excess wind energy. We’re storing that excess wind energy, which is a big deal, given how much wind HECO has and consumption at night,” Khan said. 

This application, although important, is only one of several the VPP will perform: it will also help the utility with its ramp up and ramp down of solar and other resources as well as performing frequency regulation. Khan described the latter as a fairly “benign” use of batteries from a cycling standpoint, requiring “short, direct hits into the grid”.

In other territories, the applications the VPPs will be directed to perform vary depending on the needs of the utility contracting for them. 

For one of two projects with SCE in California, Swell’s VPP will be at a new home development. By using aggregated customer resources, the utility company can defer the need to spend money and resources building out electric distribution network infrastructure to meet the growth in load. 

In New York, Swell has also been contracted to provide a ‘non-wires solution’ for Con Edison, deploying about 500kW of home battery storage to mitigate need for capital expenditure on substation equipment upgrades.  

The VPPs will do all of this while also offering homeowners with the means to use their own solar-generated power and keep some energy in reserve for backup in the case of emergencies and outages. 

Swell Energy CEO Suleman Khan said in a statement that the new software enables the co-optimisation of the “VPP experience”.

“GridAmp co-optimises the VPP experience for end-users and the utility, fundamentally enhancing value and customer participation in generating, consuming, and transacting renewable electricity,” he said.

Last September, the VPP specialist revealed that the 6,000 or so participating homes in the Hawaii VPP programme on the islands of O’ahu, Maui and Hawaii Island would receive around US$1,500 per battery device over the project’s five-year lifetime. A customer with as many as three battery systems at their home could get back US$11,700 over that time. 

In the middle of last year, HECO also began a ‘Battery Bonus’ scheme, offering one-time cash incentives to residential and commercial customers on Oahu that get battery storage to pair with their solar PV. 

Swell Energy works with equipment from numerous OEMs on its VPPs, including Tesla’s Powerwalls. CEO Suleman Khan was working at Tesla in 2015 when the original Powerwall was launched, having taken his background in structure finance into the renewable space and then energy storage.

California’s big three utilities keen to understand value of VPPs

In December, Swell Energy said it is among manufacturers and solution providers in the DERs space working to identify new use cases for residential grid services with California’s three main investor-owned utilities (IOUs): SCE, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E).

The three utilities are working to expand the participation of residential resources in their Capacity Bidding Programs, ensuring their networks have sufficient power and can reduce the load they draw from the CAISO grid, particularly during the emergency situations and outage scenarios that have been experienced over the last few years. 

In addition to its two existing VPPs with SCE, Swell Energy will work to identify further applications for residential solar and storage assets, so that they could be used to help balance the grid in different scenarios and use cases. 

In PG&E’s service area, Swell Energy will enroll solar-plus-storage customers directly into the Capacity Bidding Program, managing their systems during periods of high demand or high wholesale electricity prices. 

SDG&E’s own Capacity Bidding Program has only been open to commercial and industrial (C&I) customers thus far — Swell Energy will help the utility broaden that out to include residential systems too. 

In October Swell Energy announced a 45MWh VPP contract with a different kind of California energy supplier: the company signed up with community choice aggregator (CCA) energy supplier Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) for the provision of energy capacity and back up power to a region beset with public safety power shutoffs (PSPS), selective grid blackouts triggered during wildfire seasons.

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Rendering of a large-scale Energy Vault project. The only megawatt-scale system the company has built to date is a 5MW demonstrator in Switzerland, based on its old design concept of cranes mounted onto towers swinging large blocks in the air. Image: Energy Vault.

Energy Vault has got its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing after the gravity-based energy storage company’s merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II completed. 

The SPAC’s shareholders voted to approve the business combination at a meeting last week. Energy Vault shares list on the NYSE today (14 February) under the ticker ‘NRGV’. Its warrants list as ‘NRGV WS’. 

The combination raised around US$235 million in gross proceeds for the company. US$195 million of that is a private investment in public equity (PIPE) commitment from Korea Zinc and Atlas Renewable — strategic partners in Energy Vault — along with a host of funds and accounts including Softbank Investment Advisors. 

On those two strategic partners, Korea Zinc had upped its PIPE commitment from US$100 million to US$150 million, Energy-Storage.news reported in January. Korea Zinc saw Energy Vault’s novel technology as a possible means to decarbonise its own extraction and refinery operations, including Sun Metals, a subsidiary in Australia. 

Atlas Renewable meanwhile partnered with Energy Vault on commercialising the technology in China, with a 100MWh project claimed to be set to begin construction in the second quarter of 2022 in Jiangsu Province.

Altas Renewable’s main shareholder is China Tianying Inc, a waste processing and recycling group. Atlas counts Jeb Bush, brother of former US president George W Bush, as its chairman. Energy Vault said a US$50 million technology licensing deal had been made between the two, as well as a US$50 million PIPE commitment.

In an interview with IPO Edge a few days before the vote, Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi said the principles of the gravity storage tech mirror those of pumped hydro energy storage, except that instead of water going downhill, an “energy elevator” is taking large composite block weights up and down to turn motors to discharge energy.  

“This is all with fully automated AI and computerised control software,” Piconi said. 

In forms filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Novus Capital Corporation II said it had been seeking an investment opportunity to acquire a target company from early 2021 before its announcement in September 2021 that Energy Vault had been selected. 

Novus noted that the gravity storage technology does not have the same geological siting constraints as pumped hydro and is designed to be less at risk of supply chain challenges than other energy storage technologies like batteries. 

However in a Form S-4 filed in October last year, Energy Vault outlined that its technology and design of its large-scale energy storage systems had not yet been finalised and that it did face challenges in making those cost-competitive.

The merger gives the combined entity a value of US$1.07 billion based on a price of US$10 per share. 

An Energy Vault representative told Energy-Storage.news the proceeds raised, along with a recently closed US$107 million Series C funding round, provided Energy Vault with more capital than it anticipated requiring in its business plan to deploy units and execute a growth strategy. 

It’s the latest in a wave of energy storage and related sector companies to go public through SPAC mergers. The last year or so has seen the likes of iron flow battery company ESS Inc, zinc-air battery company Eos, distributed commercial energy storage provider Stem Inc and recycling specialist Li-Cycle all go through the process.

In a March 2021 Guest Blog article for this site, finance expert Charles Lesser at clean energy transaction consultancy Apricum wrote of the high risks and potential pitfalls, as well as rewards, of the SPAC route.

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John King

Hyperlight Energy, a developer of Hylux, a concentrated solar power (CSP) technology, has signed an exclusive license agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for its patented receiver design technology. The design improves the performance of linear Fresnel reflector (LFR) receivers used in Hyperlight’s CSP platform.

The improved performance facilitated by NREL’s receiver design, combined with Hyperlight’s low-cost reflector system, will increase the value of the Hylux platform for customers. Hyperlight is prioritizing rapid optimization and deployment of this technology at a time when companies and industries are pushing through the world’s toughest decarbonization challenges.

“We’ve worked in partnership with NREL on our in-house developed world-beating low-cost reflector system for close to a decade,” says John King, CEO and co-founder of Hyperlight Energy. “We’re thrilled to now be executing on our plan to add best-in-class performance to our offering by integrating their proprietary receiver design methodology into Hylux.”

Traditional CSP projects require large quantities of expensive steel to construct, leading to scalability challenges. By contrast, Hyperlight makes Hylux using domestically sourced recyclable plastic. Hylux can be installed on-location and designed to fit a range of industrial settings. The end result is a platform which uses mirrors to capture and reflect the sun’s heat, generating steam to efficiently power industrial processes, manufacturing, oil extraction and more.

“The new technology from NREL offers a breakthrough in design methodology that optimizes optical capture, with no additional cost for the hardware,” states Guangdong Zhu, inventor and senior engineer at NREL. “Up until now, the receiver design process started with an equation followed by a ‘guess-and-check’ approach through optical modeling of multiple iterations of the curve. However, the best way to do it is to use optical modeling from the start and let that tell you the optimal design with no guess work involved. You end up with the same material and production cost, but with a boost in performance for free.”

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Freedom Forever’s extensive sales network will use Aurora Solar‘s Sales Mode AI product to deliver accurate solar proposals to homeowners in real time. Sales Mode AI uses proprietary, machine-learning algorithms, trained on millions of 3D roof models, as well as LIDAR and imagery data, to automatically create a 3D solar design in less than 30 seconds.

“We have become one of the fastest-growing residential solar providers because we are always looking for new ways to make our processes more efficient,” says Brett Bouchy, CEO of Freedom Forever. “What’s most exciting about this relationship with Aurora is the impact we can create with this innovative technology – we can deliver an even better customer experience and lower installation costs. Together, we will be able to make solar more accessible and move one step closer to a greener future.”

“We are delighted to team up with Freedom Forever and look forward to seeing hundreds of thousands of homes adopt solar that much faster,” states Samuel Adeyemo, co-founder of Aurora Solar. “Freedom is committed to maintaining the highest standards in solar installation, and with technology like Sales Mode AI they can do that at scale.”

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Saticoy, a 100MW/400MWh battery storage project by Arevon, inaugurated last year in California. Image: Arevon Asset Management.

Progress has been made on 1.8GWh of battery energy storage projects in the service areas of California investor-owned utilities (IOUs) San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) yesterday (10 February) authorised SDG&E to build three battery energy storage system (BESS) facilities totalling 161MW/664MWh. The facilities are expected to be completed in late 2022/early 2023.

Also made public yesterday were further details of the 300MW/1,200MWh Nighthawk BESS project which will be built in PG&E territory, by developers Tenaska and Arevon.

Each of them are part of a series of new projects stemming from CPUC directives to the state’s load serving entities (LSEs), including utilities, to procure additional energy resources to bolster the grid. The state has suffered numerous power shutoffs due to the recently increased wildfire risk and plans to have a zero-carbon electricity system by 2045.

“Investing in advanced technologies like energy storage is critical to advancing our state and region’s aggressive climate goals, including getting to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, with the added benefit of making the energy grid more resilient,” SDG&E Vice President of Energy Innovation Miguel Romero said.

SDGE’s three are the latest in a series of projects which are SDG&E-owned and operated totalling 145MW by end-2022 and around 300MW by end-2023.

CPUC approved engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contracts signed by SDG&E for the 161MW of projects with Mitsubishi, Fluence and one build-own-transfer contract with ConEd Development. The three projects’ estimated total cost was given at US$399.2 million.

Project / LocationTechnologyCounterpartyOutput (MW)Duration/ Capacity (MWh)Contract typeContract lengthPala-Gomez Creek / Pala, California Lithium-ion BESSMitsubishi10MW6 hours / 60MWhEPC10 yearsMelrose / Vista, CaliforniaLithium-ion BESSFluence20MW4 hours / 40MWhEPC10 yearsWestside Canal / Imperial Valley, California Lithium-ion BESSConEdDev131MW4 hours / 524MWhBOT10 years

PG&E for its part has opted for procuring capacity and services from third party-owned BESS projects rather than directly invested and operated ones.

Nighthawk is the second-largest of nine BESS developments totalling 1.6GW/6.4GWh that PG&E announced agreements to procure from last month, the largest of which is an extension to Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility, the biggest in the world. These will bring the company’s BESS capacity to 3,330 MW by mid-2024 with 20% completed and connected to the state grid already.

Developer Tenaska said the Nighthawk project will be connected to a substation at Sycamore Canyon, which receives large amounts of solar generated in the California desert to be distributed to the San Diego area.

The BESS itself will be sited in an existing industrial park and its year-long construction is expected to begin next year.

Tesla Megapack storage systems will be used: Arevon already brought into operation 250MW/1,000MWh of projects in California and Nevada by the end of 2021.

In September Energy-Storage.news reported that the renewable energy company had signed a 2GW/6GWh master supply agreement with Tesla for Megapacks to be used in a portfolio of nine projects Arevon is co-developing with Tenaska across the three California IOUs’ service areas.

SDG&E’s new projects are specifically in response to the CPUC’s Emergency Reliability rulemaking proceeding while PG&E’s nine relate to its June 2021 ‘Decision Requiring Procurement to Address Mid-Term Reliability’. The latter requires LSEs to procure or contract for 11.5GW of additional resources, to begin delivering energy to customers by June 2026, with tranches phasing that in over 2023, 2024 and 2025.

The Mid-Term Reliability ruling has also led to a world-first procurement for long-duration energy storage, with a contract awarded to an eight-hour duration lithium project awaiting approvals.

With its 2023/24 pipeline agreed already, PG&E will issue a phase two competitive selection later this year for resources to start delivering energy over 2025/26.

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Powin’s modular Centipede BESS platform will be used for the projects. Image: Powin Energy.

Powin Energy has signed framework agreements with four developers for 5.8GWh of battery storage solutions to be delivered in the 2022-2024 timeframe. 

The Oregon, US-headquartered energy storage system integrator said yesterday that the systems would be deployed at multiple projects in the US and in Taiwan. 

The company, which sources cells and other key components and assembles them into its manufactured battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions, would supply the undisclosed developers with full integrated systems. 

Those would include the battery cells, battery management system (BMS), battery stacks, enclosures, cabling, transformers and inverters as well as software and controls system architecture. 

Powin Energy builds its systems at multiple locations from its own factories as well as through manufacturing partners in China and Taiwan — deciding in 2020 to ramp up production capacity at facilities in the latter territory from 700MWh to 2.5GWh as a counterpoint to political and trade tensions between the US and China. 

More recently, towards the beginning of this year, the company announced a ‘nearshoring’ deal to establish scaled production closer to its largely US customer base. Powin’s partnership with design, manufacture and supply chain specialist Celestica will see Powin units manufactured in Monterrey, Mexico.  

The majority of the 5.8GWh supply announced yesterday would be manufactured at that site, the company claimed. They will also all be based on Powin’s recently-launched Centipede hardware platform. 

Centipede enables the easy combination of multiple Powin Stack750E BESS units, with up to 200MWh of capacity able to be fitted into a single acre footprint. Even prior to the latest agreement, Powin had already logged more than 2GWh of orders for Centipede — equivalent to the amount of systems the company has deployed in its history to date — from a total contracted pipeline of 5GWh of orders. 

If the new framework agreements solidify into solid order intake, Powin would commission the systems and provide long-term services from operations and maintenance (O&M), to augmentation and 20-year extended warranty support. 

“With the significant strides that Powin has made as a company in the previous 12 months, these agreements signify that we have built a superior level of trust within the energy storage industry,” Powin CEO Geoff Brown said. 

“These agreements are with some of the industry’s most well-respected developers with healthy pipelines of projects located near some of the largest power hubs throughout the American West and Northeast, as well as Asia.”

The company sources the majority of its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells from China, including through two large master supply agreements with CATL and EVE, but has said that it would like to see more dispersed production capacity closer to customer demand, especially in the US. 

Powin Energy executive VP Danny Lu took part in our recent Year in Review 2021 interview blog series, offering more insights into the company’s strategies and how it views the energy storage market of today.

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