With the manufacturer planning to only offer EVs by 2030, the company estimates total battery capacity of its ‘fleet’ will reach 50GWh by the middle of the next decade.

In addition to being able to smart charge those vehicles to flexibly reduce the impact they would have on electricity consumption, the fact that the average daily journey travelled by car uses less than 10kWh and 90% of daily journeys less than 20kWh offers the opportunity to leverage the “ample spare capacity” stored in their batteries, Volvo Cars said.

The new business unit will be offering technologies and services related to energy storage and charging, starting with Volvo’s EX90 electric 7-seater SUV, a new model scheduled for launch in 2024 and the company’s first EV to be designed from scratch for electric propulsion.

Volvo’s official website page for the EX90 doesn’t list the battery sizing, although it does claim the car can do 300 miles on a single charge, while various automotive media sites and Volvo dealerships list the nameplate capacity at 111kWh.   

An initial pilot project of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) applications is being established in Gothenburg, Sweden, Volvo Car’s home city, with the local grid operator Göteborg Energi Nät. Using an AC wallbox charger, which Volvo said will be low cost, the pilot will try out the bi-directional technology in selected local homes and the grid.

In addition to V2G applications, the company is also considering options to provide vehicle-to-home (V2H) power and vehicle-to-load (V2L) – the latter being where portable electric goods such as electric bicycles could be charged directly from the car’s batteries.

“The idea with building an energy ecosystem around your car and the batteries is that it allows you to save money and reduce your CO2 emissions, while energy firms benefit from reduced grid investments and a lower overall impact on the environment,” Volvo Cars Energy Solutions senior VP Alexander Petrofski said.

Bi-directional charging for V2G and related applications, aka ‘batteries on wheels’, have been discussed as holding great potential and being technically feasible, but carmakers have largely held back, with a couple of notable exceptions such as Nissan and its Leaf EV.

This is perhaps due to barriers such as concerns over what happens to a vehicle warranty when in dual use, and the logistics of coordinating and aggregating large fleets into grid resources.

There is also the fact that the number of EVs on the world’s roads is only now beginning to reach the kind of mass adoption levels that might offer solid business cases for the technologies, which is perhaps why we have seen increasing activity in the space in recent months.

Earlier this year, Volvo Cars invested in Canadian home energy management company dcbel to help accelerate commercialisation of the startup’s tech, including a bi-directional home EV charger designed for pairing with rooftop solar PV.

Parent company Volvo Group has also recently signed a letter of intent to jointly develop a battery energy storage system (BESS) solution using second life EV batteries with UK second life specialist Connected Energy. A separate company within the group, power solutions provider Volvo Penta, recently also entered the BESS market, offering a BESS sub-system solution.

Around the same time as Volvo’s investment in dcbel, rival BMW announced a V2G pilot in California with utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). A Senator in the US state, Nancy Skinner, is currently championing Senate Bill 233 (SB 233), legislation which could make bi-directional charging capabilities a compulsory addition for EV makers.

In Europe, a trial began in June for Renault EVs to provide V2G energy with tech platform provider The Mobility House, while in August, Volkswagen’s infrastructure and utility arm Elli Group launched a digital energy trading platform aimed at enabling V2G and V2H for the parent company’s vehicles.

California Energy Commission grant funding to be announced

In related news, and going briefly back to California, the state’s energy commission is expected to soon announce awardees of grants to “accelerate the development and deployment of easy-to-use charging products which help customers manage electric vehicle (EV) charging and respond to dynamic grid signals”.

Up to US$9 million is being made available through the California Energy Commission (CEC) programme, Responsive, Easy Charging Products with Dynamic Signals (REDWDS) in the initial rollout, with a potential for a further US$300 million to be made available in a future round.

Administered under the state’s Clean Transportation Program, awardees will be required to match a minimum of a 25% share of funding, with applications closed in June.

One technology partnership, between EV charging and energy management solutions company Wallbox and bi-directional EV management software platform Bidirectional Energy said last week that it has been selected as proposed recipients for awards in the programme’s first phase. The pair will be offering an integrated bi-directional charger product from the first half of next year.

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The California-based technology company is largely focused on the US market, and made its name a few years ago as an early exponent of ‘storage-as-a-service’ business models for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers, sharing electricity bill savings in return for reduced electricity consumption from the grid at peak times while also playing energy stored in customers’ battery systems into grid services markets.

It does this through its AI-driven software platform Athena, which it has also begun leveraging to manage renewable energy assets. It also does smaller front-of-the-meter (FTM) battery storage and solar-plus-storage projects. The company has also diversified geographically from its California home market to the East Coast US and elsewhere including Texas’ ERCOT.

While it also recorded an increase in net loss, rising to US$77.1 million versus US$34.3 million a year before and lowered its 2023 guidance, company leadership has claimed Stem is on track to achieve positive adjusted EBITDA for the second half of this year, and be adjusted EBITDA positive throughout 2024.

Indeed, CEO John Carrington said that with adjusted EBITDA for the quarter at negative US$900,000 versus negative US$13 million in Q3 2022, Stem had almost achieved breakeven already.

The CEO had been clear when Stem listed publicly in 2021 that it would take time to achieve profitability, and indeed in August Energy-Storage.news noted that it was among a slew of energy storage companies that went public through SPAC mergers, only to see their average share price plunge by 80% as a result.

The company confirmed it would be expecting to reach EBITDA positive status during 2023 in announcing its Q1 2023 results, and narrowed its losses significantly in reported Q2 figures.

Hardware cost reduction, high-margin software to drive profits

In response to a question from financial analyst Brian Lee at Goldman Sachs, Carrington said that two main factors driving Stem toward profitability are “cost control” over hardware as well as the higher margin software and services deals that it expects to represent a growing portion of its activities.

On the hardware front, Stem is launching its own modular energy storage system (ESS) solution, which Carrington said will “drive down working capital usage”, although he noted that interconnection delays have slowed down progress on its rollout. While the company had hoped to have some in the field this year, they are now expected to be installed in the first half of 2024.

On the same day quarterly results were released, 2 November, Stem announced a technology partnership with SB Energy, the US renewable energy developer backed by Japanese telecoms company Softbank and sustainable infrastructure investor Ares Climate Infrastructure.

The “multi-year technology and commercial alliance” will see Stem’s AI-driven software combined with SB Energy’s Digital Platform for new front-of-the-meter (FTM) energy storage and renewables infrastructure.

Stem will also be a preferred partner to supply its energy management system (EMS) to the developer’s North American pipeline of energy storage projects in markets including California’s CAISO and ERCOT over the next five years, representing a claimed 10GWh of capacity.

There were a couple of bumps in the road for the company’s finances during 2023 in that the value of some contracts changed with volatility in the supply chain, primarily due to the well-reported spikes in lithium raw materials costs.

There was also some downward adjustment to the tune of US$37.4 million due to specific terms around some hardware contracts, but Stem said it expected both hits to be non-recurring.

Stem updated its full-year 2023 guidance, from a previously guided US$550 million to US$650 million of revenues, to between US$513 million and US$613 million due to that US$37.4 million. Adjusted EBITDA guidance was lowered from negative US$35 million to negative US$5 million to between -US$25 million and -US$15 million.

Stem’s contracted backlog at the end of Q3 stood at US$1.84 billion, a 35% rise from US$1.36 billion at the end of Q3 2022, while its contracted energy storage assets under management (AUM) increased by 32% sequentially to from 3.8GWh in Q2 2023 to 5GWh and its solar monitoring AUM increased 1% sequentially to 26.3GW from the signing of new contracts.

While Carrington said Stem would not yet be issuing guidance for 2024, he said the growth in revenues in Q3 brought it “really close to breakeven”.

The CEO said demand for clean energy solutions remained strong despite rising interest rates – the recent subject of Tesla boss Elon Musk’s ire – and tailwinds from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) tax incentives were picking up, especially after the recent publication of guidance from the government on how they will be applied.

“We still expect to achieve our goal of being adjusted EBITDA positive in the second half of 2023,” Bill Bush, Stem’s chief financial officer (CFO) said on the earnings call.

“We define that as the sum of the third and fourth quarters being adjusted EBITDA positive, so with the third quarter in the books, we have confidence that we will be adjusted EBITDA positive in the fourth quarter of this year,” Bush said.

The CFO added that achieving full-year positive adjusted EBITDA in 2024, as Stem expects to, would be “a key achievement in our corporate maturation,” with guidance to be provided in February when Stem’s Q4 and full-year 2023 results are announced.

Earnings call transcript by Seeking Alpha.

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National Grid said this is part of a new approach which removes the need for non-essential engineering works prior to connecting storage.

The freed BESS capacity adds to the 10GW of capacity unlocked for power generators with “shovel ready” projects revealed in September 2023.

This is the latest attempt to solve the grid connection woes that are currently plaguing the country’s energy system.

National Grid ESO, a separate arm of the organisation which is responsible for running the electricity system, published a five-point plan to speed up grid connections in June which it said could help projects connect to the grid between 2-10 years faster.

One of the core aspects of this was to speed up the connection of battery storage projects and thus ESO has welcomed the latest news.

To read the full version of this story, visit Current±.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 9th annual Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 21-22 February 2024. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place. Visit the official site for more info.

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LONGi Green Energy Technology Co. Ltd. says it has set a new world record of 33.9% for the efficiency of crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) certified the results.

It is reported that the previous world record was 33.7% and conducted by King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST) in May this year.

The new record efficiency of 33.9% has surpassed the Shockley-Quieser (S-Q) theoretical efficiency limit of 33.7% of single junction solar cells for the first time. This provides meaningful empirical data to demonstrate the advantages of crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells over crystalline silicon single junction solar cells in terms of efficiency.

LONGi says the new world record is the first time that a Chinese company has achieved the feat since the efficiency record of crystalline silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells began being tracked in 2015.

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Alice Heathcote

Strata Clean Energy has closed a $300 million revolving loan and letter of credit facility to expand its operational fleet and accelerate the commercialization of its diversified 17+ GW development pipeline. 

Nomura Securities International Inc. led the financing, acting as Sole Coordinating Lead Arranger, Bookrunner, and Nomura Corporate Funding Americas LLC as Administrative Agent, with First Citizens Bank and ING Capital as Joint Lead Arrangers alongside five other participant banks.

Notably, the loan adheres to a Green Financing Framework in accordance with the 2023 Loan Syndications and Trading Association (LSTA) Green Loan Principles. Nomura and ING Capital acted as Green Structuring Agents.

The proceeds of the loan will support the development, construction and operation of Strata’s upcoming renewable energy, energy storage and power-to-X projects. This facility also provides working capital for Strata’s growing EPC and O&M divisions, both of which have played a pivotal role in the company’s 15-year history of execution for its own independent power producer and third-party customers. 

“This facility strengthens Strata’s liquidity position and enables us to drive forward with groundbreaking and economically viable renewable initiatives in markets nationwide,” says Alice Heathcote, CFO of Strata Clean Energy. “The support of our financial partners is instrumental in propelling us forward as a leading fully integrated cleantech platform, offering a comprehensive one-stop solution for development through construction, with an unwavering commitment to quality.”

Nixon Peabody and Norton Rose Fulbright acted as borrower’s and lenders’ counsel, respectively.

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Castillo Engineering and RECON Corp., an EPC and solar contractor, have partnered on a 15 MW portfolio of five community solar projects in Illinois.

Part of the Illinois Shines or Adjustable Block Program, each of the 3 MW community solar projects will use bifacial solar modules and FLEXRACK by Qcells solar trackers, and will each provide pollinator-friendly habitats.

The projects will begin construction before the end of the year. Once complete, Castillo Engineering and RECON will have collectively completed over 60 community solar projects in Illinois totaling over 200 MW.

“We selected Castillo Engineering for these projects due to their extensive community solar experience within Illinois,” says Scott Walker, president at RECON. “Castillo Engineering also offers a streamlined design approach due to their in-house civil and electrical teams, which helps with optimizing designs – from fault current ratings to equipment pad design.”

Castillo Engineering’s team was able to optimize and reduce the cost of mid-voltage equipment through utility fault current insights on all five of these projects. Voltage drop and wire sizes for direct current circuits were also reduced after assessing the impact of the bifacial modules. Additionally, the firm’s in-house civil engineering team was able to optimize the access road to incorporate existing conditions, reducing permitting time and costs for each of these community solar projects.

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One is Shurkul, a large-scale hybrid renewable energy park, including solar PV, wind energy and battery energy storage system (BESS) technology and set to be built in the vicinity of the city of Navoi. The cooperation agreement just signed covers an implementation protocol for the project, Voltalia said.

The other is Sarimay, a 123MW solar PV project which was awarded to the developer in a government tender coordinated by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in late 2022.

During Macron’s visit with Uzbekistan’s president Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Voltalia signed an extension protocol agreement to add 100MW of wind energy to the Sarimay project, as well as battery storage of undisclosed – or not yet determined – sizing.

Proposed battery storage output and capacity for the Shurkul hybrid plant was revealed however in November 2022, when Voltalia first signed a co-development agreement with Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Investment. The BESS portion would be 60MW/240MWh, and co-located with 200MW of solar PV, and 200MW of wind generation.

At that time, the project site hadn’t yet been selected, with the two development partners since doing so, while Shurkul is expected to be commissioned in 2026 or later. The “electricity cluster,” as Voltalia described it, would be the first of its kind in Central Asia.

Voltalia said last year that its market entry into Uzbekistan was prompted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), which is one of the developer’s shareholders, and the EBRD was present once again last week as the further agreements were signed.

The Sarimay project was one of three winning bids in the government tender, as reported by our colleagues at PV Tech, and Voltalia’s bid, at US$0,028/kWh was the lowest-priced of the three winners. One of the other two was UAE state-owned renewables company Masdar, which won with a bid to build a 250MW PV plant, with a 62MW BESS – expected to be the country’s first implementation of grid-scale batteries.

Incidentally, Masdar built on its relationship with the Uzbekistan government following the tender win, signing a joint development agreement (JDA) for more than 2GW of solar and wind, as well as 500MWh of battery storage. Fellow Middle East-headquartered developer ACWA Power, from Saudi Arabia, signed investment agreements for solar PV and battery storage with the Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade earlier this year.

Uzbekistan is targeting 8GW of renewable energy capacity by 2026, and 12GW by 2030, with much of the motivation being to gain energy independence. The country is one of the world’s major natural gas producers and exporters. The fuel also comprises about 54% of its domestic electricity generation, and solar and wind deployment levels are “negligible” according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Meanwhile, Voltalia has built various types of renewable energy projects to date, company CEO said its experience with developing mixed technology renewables projects such as a hybrid wind and solar park in Brazil and solar-plus-storage in French Guiana was central to its selection by the Uzbek government. The company recently published its Q3 2023 financial results, which included a turnover of €126.2 million (US$133.3 million) for the three-month period.

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Meanwhile, CEO Mary Powell said in an earnings call that Sunrun is “rapidly transitioning to a storage-first company,” which would be a significant departure from the company’s background in residential solar power generation. The company’s dramatic increase in storage capacity installations from 2022 to 2023 suggests that it is investing considerably in this aim, and this is evident in its storage attachment rates, and the percentage of new solar installations built with battery storage systems.

The company’s storage attachment rates reached 33% in the third quarter of this year, with Sunrun noting that some “new sales” have an attachment rate as high as 40%. Wood Mackenzie reported that, in the first quarter of this year, just 11.1% of all new residential solar systems in the US were built with storage systems, down from an all-time peak of just over 12% in 2022, and Sunrun’s attachment rate is much higher than the national average.

Crucially, Sunrun’s storage plans are focused on regions where solar and storage are already commonplace, most notably California, which, according to Wood Mackenzie, was one of four regions that accounted for 79% of the total solar-plus-storage market in the US in 2022. Sunrun’s attachment rate in California is above 85%, and the company’s ability to expand its storage business in a mature and lucrative market could be a positive sign of its long-term prospects.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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Alongside NatWest in the syndicate sits UK Infrastructure Bank (UIB), with each bank holding a 50% share in the capex loan, whilst the VAT facility is solely funded by NatWest.

The site in southern England is expected to go live in July 2025.

“It’s great to support the new Sheaf Energy Park project and continue to help the decarbonisation agenda of the UK, working alongside UKIB to give Pacific Green a market leading debt structure that helps them bring in a further 249MW of flexible generation assets to the grid,” said Jacob Lloyd, head of specialist asset finance at NatWest.

“BESS continues to play a big role in the UK’s grid stability, and we look forward to working further with Pacific Green on the future of energy transition.”

Pacific Green recently sold its Richborough Energy Park 99MWh BESS site, also in the English county of Kent, with Sosteneo Fund HoldCo S.à.r.l. purchasing 100% of Pacific Green’s shares in the site, which is set to become operational before the end of this year.

Its 100% interest in Sheaf Energy Park was acquired from project originator Tupa Energy for £7.5 million in late 2022 and is the result of a framework agreement signed in March 2021 with its fellow developer. Tupa Energy agreed to source projects for Pacific Green to work on, with the latter aiming to deploy 1.1GW of storage in the UK market. An agreement that Sheaf Energy Park would be one of those was signed in September of that year.

The developer also announced its “strategic entry” into the Australian market in early October, securing land in the state of Victoria on which it said up to 1GW/2.5GWh of BESS could be developed in so-called ‘Energy Parks’.

This story first appeared on Solar Power Portal.

Additional reporting for Energy-Storage.news by Andy Colthorpe.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 9th annual Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 21-22 February 2024. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place. Visit the official site for more info.

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As reported by Energy-Storage.news as Round 1 opened in April, proposals must include at least five battery storage systems each, with systems that share a grid connection counted as one project. The programme is being paid for by money allocated from the federal government’s Household Solar Budget.

In total, AU$171 million from a total pot of AU$200 million in the Household Solar Budget will be contributed towards the cost of projects, aiming to result in the deployment of at least 342 battery installations.

The idea is that kickstarting community battery projects across Australia will “provide valuable knowledge that can be shared across Australia to fast track the implementation of these local batteries,” ARENA CEO Darren Miller said.

Community batteries are battery energy storage system (BESS) resources connected to the electricity network at distribution level, and the idea is that it helps communities share the benefits of locally deployed rooftop solar PV while easing congestion on their local grid.

It also means that people who live in rented or shared accommodation, or who are otherwise unable to buy or lease their own PV and/or battery storage, can also benefit from the technologies.

‘Overwhelming’ response

ARENA said on Friday (3 November) that the response it received had been “overwhelming,”  with 140 eligible applications received. The agency has now shortlisted 31 proposals, with applicants invited to make a full application before the submissions window closes in March next year.

Value of those 140 grant requests was AU$1.3 billion and the total investment cost for those projects would be AU$3.5 billion.

The first round is being split into two streams of projects: the first, Stream A, is for community battery projects to be deployed in front-of-the-meter (FTM) and carried out or owned by distribution network service providers (DNSPs). Stream B is for non-DNSP entities deploying storage behind-the-meter (BTM) on distribution networks.

Of the 31 shortlisted proposals, 14 are Stream A projects for which AU$93 million has been requested, 17 are Stream B projects for which AU$138 million has been requested. Total value of those shortlisted projects is AU$530 million.

The process will likely be highly competitive, as each stream has AU$60 million to disburse in the first round.

The programme marks ongoing interest in developing and deploying community batteries in Australia, with the government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) separately also delivering 58 community battery installs across the country, with some already commissioned.

As regular readers of Energy-Storage.news will likely be aware, there are also programmes by Australian state governments to promote and evaluate the role of community-level energy storage. That includes a programme in Victoria to assess the multi-use benefits of such batteries, and in Queensland, where AU$10 million funding is being put towards 35 installations in the city of Ipswich.

In Western Australia meanwhile, a five-year programme to assess the benefits and use of community BESS concluded favourably in 2021, leading the state government to deploy nine systems of around half a megawatt each in rural parts of Western Australia through a scheme called Energy Storage in Regional Towns. One of those systems, in a town called Marble Bar, is pictured above.

However, while the benefits are numerous and varied, the business case for community batteries is a tricky one to pencil out and could require changes in network tariff charges, experts from the Australian National University wrote in an article last year for our quarterly journal PV Tech Power (Vol. 29).

ANU’s team, which has carried out extensive techno-socioeconomic modelling of shared energy storage at community level, also said it preferred the term “neighbourhood batteries” to the “community” nomenclature. This is because the latter implies a level of community involvement, which is the case in some, but not all, proposed or piloted models in Australia.

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