Nautilus Solar Energy LLC, on behalf of its affiliate Nautilus US Power Holdco LLC (NUPH), has acquired two community solar portfolios in Maryland totaling 23 MW, securing its role as a leader in Maryland’s growing community solar marketplace. These portfolios, which are composed of six projects spread across the state, are expected to be operational by 2024 and underscore Nautilus’ commitment to empowering more than 5,000 Maryland subscribers residing in the Pepco and BGE utility territories with equitable access to clean, renewable energy.

Nautilus already owns and manages nearly 90 MW of operational and late-stage development projects in Maryland and provides renewable power to tens of thousands of residents.

“Our focus is not just on producing clean energy,” says Eric Paul, vice president of partner development at Nautilus, “but ensuring that the benefits, particularly the cost savings, reach every Marylander – especially those from low-to-moderate income backgrounds and historically disadvantaged communities.”

Maryland recently became the latest state with a permanent community solar program, notably requiring at least 40% of solar capacity dedicated to benefit low-to-moderate income customers. This will ensure equitable access to electric bill savings at a time when inflated energy prices are driving up household energy costs. In addition, these projects will create significant local construction jobs and generate opportunities for new property tax revenue and other community benefits over their operational life.

NUPH is the long-term owner of the projects and Nautilus is responsible for overseeing construction, maintaining their long-term performance and acquiring and managing customer subscriptions.

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Caelux, a California-based company specializing in perovskite solar technology, has closed a $12 million Series A3 funding round led by Temasek, a global investment company, with participation from Reliance New Energy Ltd., Khosla Ventures, Mitsui Fudosan and Fine Structure Ventures.

This round brings the company’s total amount raised for the Series A to $24 million. The funding will be allocated primarily to support the company’s factory ramp, research and development and product launch, allowing Caelux to bring its more powerful, efficient and affordable solar solution to market at a critical time of pressing environmental challenges.

The investment follows Caelux’s advancements in perovskite technology, creating a more near-term solution than previously thought possible and allowing for imminent deployment at scale. To bring this innovation to market, the company is building a manufacturing facility in Baldwin Park, Calif., and ramping up to reach 100 MW of perovskite-coated glass.

“This investment will support our mission to usher in the next generation of solar innovation, including our production of full-size perovskite sub-modules,” says Scott Graybeal, CEO, Caelux. “We are excited to have attracted visionary, global investors to help us on our journey to multi-gigawatt scale.”

The company’s full-release product, Caelux One will be a major step forward in realizing the industry goal of greater than 30% efficient commercial tandem solar modules while meeting market requirements for durability. The advancements in scalability, efficiency and reliability will lead to lower installation costs for developers and installers, increased revenue for module makers and better returns at the project level by delivering more green energy at a lower cost compared to traditional crystalline silicon modules.

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Arizona-based First Solar Inc. has released its 2023 Sustainability Report and established a new industry first benchmark for transparency by publicly disclosing details of onsite third-party social audits conducted across its global manufacturing footprint. First Solar is also believed to be the first among the world’s largest solar manufacturers to have conducted third-party social audits across its operational global manufacturing footprint.

First Solar, the only major solar manufacturer that is a member of the Responsible Business Alliance (RBA), conducted three onsite third-party RBA Validated Assessment Program (VAP) audits at its manufacturing facilities in the United States, Vietnam and Malaysia. The company’s U.S. and Vietnam operations achieved platinum status, the highest possible rating.

Audits the Malaysia facility uncovered four service providers that fell short of First Solar’s standards. Details of the findings and corrective actions are included in the company’s 2023 Sustainability Report. The Malaysia facility is expected to have its VAP closure audit in the fourth quarter of 2023. Credible third-party social audits do not rubber-stamp compliance but identify and help remedy existing and potential issues to improve the lives of workers across the supply chain.

The report also highlights that First Solar’s new factory in Tamil Nadu, India, which is scheduled to begin commercial production in the second half of 2023, is expected to be the world’s first net-zero water withdrawal solar manufacturing facility. The facility, located in a region of high baseline water stress, is designed to minimize its impact on local water resources and will rely entirely on tertiary treated reverse osmosis water from the city’s sewage treatment plant and have zero wastewater discharge.

“The solar industry will anchor the global transition to a sustainable energy future, and we believe that it must do so responsibly,” says Mark Widmar, CEO, First Solar. “Quite simply, our industry’s work to power the energy transition and enable the fight against climate change does not serve as credits to offset its social and human rights obligations.”

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New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has stated that the fourth round of the Future Grid Challenge will make $11 million in funding available for projects that identify solutions to the technical challenges of integrating a changing energy resource mix into the electric grid.

“With the increasing number of extreme weather events in New York and across the country, we are working hard to modernize our electric grid and support the development of technologies that will improve reliability,” says Gov. Hochul.

Administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), the fourth round of the challenge is seeking proposals from single or team providers, including researchers, product vendors, asset managers and consultants, to develop or demonstrate advanced technologies that will support a reliable modern energy transmission and distribution system. Projects must also advance reduced energy costs and greater quantities of renewables integration, while helping New York meet its climate goals.

Up to $3 million per project is available to address high-priority grid technologies including:

Improved transmission utilization

Operational situational awareness

Distribution Energy Management Systems

Inverter based resource integration

Power electronics

Grid modeling

Data analytics

Artificial intelligence/machine learning

Protection systems

The deadline for proposal submissions is 3 p.m. on October 26, 2023. For additional details and associated documents, visit NYSERDA’s website.

Funding for this initiative is through the State’s 10-year, $6 billion Clean Energy Fund.

Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.

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EDP Renewables North America (EDPR NA), a renewable energy developer and operator, has debuted its first Technician Training Facility in Bloomington, Illi., to educate the next generation of clean energy workers who will keep its more than 470 operational utility-scale and distributed generation projects running safely and efficiently while supporting local jobs and investment in project communities across North America.

The complex, where new solar and wind technicians will gain the expertise necessary for a successful renewable energy career, will serve as a training hub for EDPR NA, which has a vast development and operational portfolio spanning Illinois and the Midwest. EDPR NA’s new center is a purpose-built space that will set the industry standard for conveying the knowledge base and skillsets necessary to be an effective front-line clean energy worker.

Bloomington, Ill., serves as a strategic setting for the training center. It is centrally located to EDPR NA’s seven operational Illinois wind farms and near many of the company’s other major projects. EDPR NA has been producing more than 1.2 GW of clean energy in Illinois since 2007 – representing a $2.5 billion capital investment – and has continued to expand its operations in the state.

Given the recent expansion of federal economic incentives, EDPR NA is expected to develop 3 to 4 GW of new operating assets every year for the next few years, spurring the need to invest in the next generation of technicians who will be powering America. The renewables industry offers a unique opportunity for skilled trades workers to translate their experience from a variety of backgrounds into an industry that is rapidly growing.

Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO, EDPR NA, says: “We’re excited to be giving this vital workforce a space for ideas to flourish, skills to be honed, and for our collective transition to a sustainable future to gain even more momentum.”

Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.

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Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd., a designer and manufacturer of solar panels, has chosen Albuquerque, N.M., as the location for its first United States manufacturing expansion. The new 3 GW facility will be designed to produce latest-generation TOPCon PV-silicon cell technology and the Maxeon’s proprietary shingled-cell Performance Line solar.

The new plant will serve both the utility-scale power plant market and distributed generation rooftop applications. The total investment in the project is expected to be more than $1 billion, and is subject to a successful financial close under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Title 17 Clean Energy Financing Program.

Maxeon is currently in the due diligence stage of its loan application and site selection is an important milestone in completing this process with DOE’s Loan Programs Office. DOE’s invitation into the due diligence and term sheet negotiation process is not an assurance that DOE will issue a loan guarantee, nor that the terms and conditions of a loan guarantee will align with terms proposed by the applicant.

The Maxeon plant is expected to be the first large-scale PV cell and panel manufacturer in New Mexico, and its planned capacity is approximately double the size of the largest silicon solar manufacturing facility currently operating in the U.S. Maxeon expects to begin construction in the first quarter of 2024, with factory ramp-up to commence in 2025.

Maxeon has selected a 160-acre site located in the community of Mesa Del Sol, and is designing the complex to include solar cell fabrication, panel assembly, a warehouse and administrative offices. Once the new facility is complete, Maxeon estimates it will create up to 1,800 jobs, including highly skilled manufacturing and engineering positions, and produce millions of solar panels each year for the U.S. market. The New Mexico facility expands Maxeon’s global manufacturing footprint, which currently includes plants in Mexico, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Due to strong customer demand and the planned availability of sufficient infrastructure at the Mesa Del Sol site, Maxeon is currently evaluating plans to upsize the scale of its U.S. manufacturing operation by approximately 50% to a nameplate capacity of 4.5 GW. A final decision regarding plant capacity is expected later this year.

“Maxeon’s facility will be the second major clean energy manufacturing facility to open in New Mexico since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act,” says Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.). “Together, we’re unleashing our clean energy potential and creating hundreds of high-quality jobs for New Mexicans. The best part: We’re only just getting started.”

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Waters joins Powin nearly a year after his last major role in the energy industry, as CEO of solar PV module manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies. He spent two years at the head of Maxeon from its formation in August 2020 as a spin-off from residential solar and storage provider SunPower, which Waters oversaw. He was at SunPower for two years before the spin-off too.

Maxeon took four months to replace Waters, appointing Bill Mulligan as CEO in January this year, reported by our sister site PV Tech.

Whilst at Maxeon, Waters ‘…led a substantial turnaround in profitability and revenue growth through a transformation of its global operations and the creation of new businesses, including significant expansion in the utility-scale market’, Powin said.

“On behalf of the Board, we thank Geoff Brown for his visionary leadership over the last seven years, taking us from start-up to market leader in a multi-billion-dollar global industry,” said Glenn Jacobson, Powin’s chairman. “We’re delighted to have Jeff Waters taking over as leader of the company at an important stage in the company’s development, given his deep experience bringing companies to scale in dynamic, technology-driven markets.”

“Serving as Powin’s CEO has been an honor. I couldn’t have asked for a more innovative and passionate team to be a part of,” said Brown. “I’m excited to welcome Jeff on board. With his extensive background in operations, manufacturing, and product development leading us forward, I can’t wait to see where Powin goes next.”

Powin is the third-largest BESS provider by MWh of projects contracted after Tesla and Fluence according to company president Anthony Carroll, speaking with Energy-Storage.news at the Energy Storage Summit USA in Austin in March.

Although operating in separate parts of the clean industry, some similarities can be drawn between Maxeon and Powin. Both have launched manufacturing facilities in Mexico and the US in recent years and could also been seen to be targeting the ‘higher-end’ of their respective markets with their choice of technology and/or target customers.

Energy-Storage.news last interviewed Geoff Brown about the company’s strategy in May 2022.

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However at present, it is lagging far behind its goals: while it is pursuing 2,000MW of storage by 2030, as of October last year when the draft plan was first published, it had only 497MW, of which 420MW came from an existing pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plant.

Along the way, it also had a 600MW target for deployment by 2021, which obviously was also missed. Only a small handful of energy storage project developments have found their way into our coverage since then.

Most recently, a project bid proposal in New Jersey’s latest offshore wind tender included a 253MW battery storage system in its design, reported a few days ago. In December last year, the state’s last coal-fired power plant was demolished, and owner Starwood Energy said it wanted to put large-scale battery storage on the site.

Staff at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities came up with a straw proposal for the New Jersey Energy Storage Incentive Program (NJ SIP), which was published in late September last year with a view to setting the state onto the right trajectory.

As reported by Energy-Storage.news as the straw proposal came out, the programme would create separate streams to incentivise both front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter storage, the former defined as Grid Supply and the latter as Distributed/Customer Level installations. In both instances, eligibility for the scheme would be limited to facilities connected to the networks of New Jersey electric distribution companies (EDCs).

The incentives payable would include a 30% fixed annual payment component, as well as pay-for-performance. Board staff also proposed that private investors should be allowed to own and operate energy storage resources, and to stack revenues from multiple streams for the different applications their assets could perform.

The regulatory Board of Public Utilities said last week that the NJ SIP “will build a critical foundation for a long-term energy storage effort in the State”. It has opened up for public comment in the new RFI, which follows a number of stakeholder engagement sessions the Board has held since publication.

The RFI remains open for comments until 5pm Eastern Time, 12 September 2023. Comments the Board has already received from stakeholders including energy storage manufacturers, service providers, system integrators and developers such as Tesla, Stem, Convergent Energy & Power and others can be seen here, where public comments should also be filed.

Our publisher Solar Media is hosting the 10th Solar and Storage Finance USA conference, 7-8 November 2023 at the New Yorker Hotel, New York. Topics ranging from the Inflation Reduction Act to optimising asset revenues, the financing landscape in 2023 and much more will be discussed. See the official site for more details.

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It would also regulate the deployment of energy storage at vehicle fueling stations to help buffer the grid from spikes in demand when multiple electric vehicles (EVs) charge at once, the Ministry said in a statement last week (9 August).

While details of the master plan, TMA, appear to have not been disclosed, the strategy has been developed to support Israel in deploying sufficiency energy storage to integrate rising shares of renewable energy – mostly from solar – onto its grid.

A draft of the TMA was submitted for government approval earlier this year, around the same time the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said it would also be promoting a programme to develop and construct four separate 200MW/800MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) assets in Israel’s northern Gilboa mountain region.

As mentioned in our coverage yesterday of Sungrow’s 127MWh BESS supply deal in Israel to EDF Renewables, Israel is targeting getting to 30% renewable energy on its grid by 2030. This is made more challenging than in some other countries due to its status as an ‘energy island’, without interconnection to neighbours that would allow cross-border renewable energy imports.

The share of renewables currently stands at about 10%, and the future buildout is expected to largely comprise new solar PV, which will account for about all but 4% of that 30% share.

The government has identified energy storage as an effective means to enable that trajectory. Studies from about three years ago from the national Electricity Authority (PUA), modelled a need for about 8GWh of storage, although more recent figures from the Israeli Green Energy Association put that at closer to a likely 10GWh of required storage.

While the government has played its part to date in stimulating demand for energy storage, most notably through a couple of rounds of tenders for solar PV capacity paired with 4-hour duration battery storage, adoption of the TMA national plan would enable a wider rollout.

TMA includes principles for planning storage facilities, the locations at which construction should be permitted, and instructions on how to assess environmental impact.

Dorit Hochner, Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure planning director, said the plan would set out the preferred locations for new energy storage, as well as recommendations on layout and construction characteristics, and would also make recommendations to remove barriers to deployment.

The responsible sub-committee recommended last week that the National Council for Planning approve the national plan.

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The report is a deep-dive into the suitability of different technologies for deploying the 71GWh of new large-scale energy storage that Terna forecasts Italy will need to decarbonise its energy system in a ‘Fit-for-55’ scenario. Fit-for-55 is the EU’s goal of reduce greenhouse emissions by 55% by 2030.

Terna added that the average power rating of the 71GWh will need to be one-eighth of the energy storage capacity, meaning a total power rating of the new energy storage capacity of 8.875GW. The 8.875GW/71GWh is in addition to distributed energy storage resources and large-scale projects already procured through past capacity market and ancillary service auctions.

However, it added the figures may change: “The actual needs for new storage capacity (GWh) to be procured by the new mechanism will have to be re-evaluated over time, taking into account the actual development and geographical location of renewable energy sources in Italy.”

The TSO said that energy storage will provide time-shifting and grid services to ensure the security and adequacy of its electricity system. Storage will make it possible to shift the production of intermittent renewables from high-production hours to those with low or no production.

Legislative Decree No. 210/2021, passed in early 2022, allows for the introduction of a new mechanism for the TSO to procure in advance new energy storage capacity, to be finalised in the coming months with the first auctions expected in late 2023/early 2024.

Terna’s report identified seven reference technologies: lithum-ion, pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), compressed air energy storage (CAES), non-lithium ion electrochemical storage (flow etc), power-to-gas-to power storage (green hydrogen etc), electrostatic or magnetic storage and electromechanical flywheel storage.

The report went on to detail the different durations, performance, availability, lifetime, lead time, round-trip efficiency (RTE), technological and commercial maturity, investment and operating costs and risks of these different technologies and their suitability for Terna’s needs.

It didn’t make any firm conclusions at the end, however towards the state it did say that lithium-ion and PHES are the two main reference technologies because of their technological and commercial maturity and both “can offer the services required for the integration of renewables and the efficient operation of the electricity system”.

Energy-Storage.news did a deep dive into Italy’s burgeoning grid-scale energy storage market for Vol.35 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar and storage industries.

Since it was published, gigawatt-sized pipelines have been announced by developers Emeren and Matrix Renewables, Altea Green Power and Eku Energy in partnership with Renera, while UK-based Aura Power got final approval for an 800MWh project, one of the largest in development.

See all Italy news here and read Terna’s report here.

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