First Solar Inc. is planning a limited production run of the world’s first bifacial solar panel utilizing an advanced thin film semiconductor. The fully functional pre-commercial Series 6 Plus Bifacial photovoltaic (PV) module made its industry debut at Intersolar Europe in Munich, Germany.

The module, which is undergoing field and laboratory testing, builds on the track record of First Solar’s successful Series 6 monofacial module platform. The module features an innovative transparent back contact, pioneered by First Solar’s research and development (R&D) teams. In addition to enabling bifacial energy gain, it allows infrared wavelengths of light to pass through rather than be absorbed as heat. It is expected to lower the operational temperature of the bifacial module and result in a higher specific energy yield.

“This module combines the quality, sustainability, reliability and long-term performance of our Series 6 Plus platform with our first increment of bifaciality,” says Pat Buehler, chief product officer, First Solar. “Once commercialized, we expect Series 6 Plus Bifacial to represent the first real alternative to crystalline silicon-based bifacial technology, effectively combining bifaciality with the industry’s best warranted degradation rate, CdTe thin film’s ability to deliver more energy per nameplate watt, best-in-class reliability and durability and innovative module design.”

Series 6 Plus monofacial module features an industry-best 0.3 percent warranted degradation rate, superior temperature coefficient, spectral response, and shading behavior, and an anti-reflective coating to enhance energy production. Moreover, unlike crystalline silicon panels, First Solar’s Series 6 Plus module does not experience losses from Light Induced Degradation and Light and elevated Temperature Induced Degradation. The module is manufactured under one roof with 100% traceable quality assurance, exceeding International Electrotechnical Commission standards in high temperature, high humidity, and extreme desert and coastal applications.

First Solar is in the midst of constructing a new R&D innovation center in Perrysburg, Ohio. Representing an investment of approximately $370 million, the facility is believed to be the first of its scale in the Western Hemisphere and is expected to accelerate the development and production of advanced thin film PV.

Scheduled to be completed in 2024, the R&D center will be located near First Solar’s existing Perrysburg manufacturing facility, covering an area of approximately 1.3 million square feet. It will feature a high-tech pilot manufacturing line allowing for the production of full sized prototypes of thin film and tandem PV modules.

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LONGi, a manufacturer of solar modules and a developer of solar power projects, has launched its latest PV module, the Hi-MO 7, in Canada. Introduced globally in May, the Hi-MO 7 represents a significant advancement in solar technology, combining efficiency, reliability and sustainability.

Designed with the latest high-efficiency mono HPDC (Hybrid Passivated Dual-Junction Cell), this standard bifacial M10-sized module offers superior power output of up to 580 W and a conversion efficiency of 22.5%, ensuring optimal energy generation even in challenging weather conditions. Additionally, Hi-MO 7’s advanced module design and manufacturing further increase power production as well as improve performance and reliability.

“We are thrilled to introduce the Hi-MO 7 PV module to the Canadian market,” says Steven Chan, head of LONGi North America. “Canada has emerged as a key player in the global transition to renewable energy. The Hi-MO 7 module showcases our dedication to solar technology innovation and reinforces our position as a leading provider of PV modules worldwide.”

The Hi-MO 7 is the end result of multi-dimensional product design and stringent raw materials selection as well as advanced manufacturing processes. It utilizes high-quality monocrystalline silicon wafers, optimized module encapsulation and cell paste, SMBB high-precision interconnection and intelligent automatic junction box welding technology. The use of digitalized manufacturing and quality control platforms incorporating AI detection technology further guarantees the quality of Hi-MO 7.

LONGi’s Hi-MO 7 bifacial module features an advanced frame design, incorporating a 30-millimeter high-strength aluminum alloy frame for enhanced durability and load capacity. Its robust construction enables the module to withstand heavy snow loads and high wind pressures, ensuring exceptional performance and durability in the cold weather.

CJ Fu, director of product solutions, LONGi North America says, “After LONGi’s rigorous 18-month evaluation, development and testing program, this module not only significantly improves module efficiency, but it also brings world-leading product quality and long-term reliability.”

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It’s Powin’s second multi-year deal with EVE, following a two-year “gigawatt-scale” contract in 2021. While the exact size of that deal was not disclosed at the time, Powin said EVE’s cells would be used in nearly 500MWh of projects during that year.

Powin Energy executive VP Danny Lu told Energy-Storage.news in 2021 that his company had “every intention” of renewing its contract with the manufacturer after the two year term, and it looks as though that has played out as expected.

Reasons given for selecting the supplier at the time included its 20-year performance guarantee, but also that EVE met a criteria of being able to provide lithium battery cells with the right prismatic form factor to drop into Powin’s rack and module designs for its battery energy storage system (BESS) solutions.

“By combining Powin’s deep industry expertise with our state-of-the-art LFP battery technology, we are poised to deliver sustainable energy storage solutions at an unprecedented scale,” EVE Energy VP Steve Chen said yesterday.

EVE Energy is currently in the process of opening six new battery production plants with annual capacity of 60GWh, targeting reaching 200GWh annual capacity, which would make it among the biggest players in the industry today. It serves multiple battery markets with products that include consumer electronics, prismatic LFP cells, pouch NMC cells, and many more.

For Powin, it also marks the next step in its work to deliver the Waratah Super Battery, which is being constructed in New South Wales. The project, described by the government of the Australian state as like being a “giant shock absorber” for the electricity grid, will be contracted to supply 700MW/1,400MWh of system protection from events that can cause disruptions, such as lightning strikes. It is anticipated that the BESS itself will be sized larger than that to be able to capture merchant market opportunities too.

Centipede, Powin’s modular utility-scale BESS platform. Image: Powin.

Centipede integrates Powin Stack units (pictured). Image: Powin Energy.

Working with Blackrock-owned developer Akaysha Power on the Waratah Super Battery, Powin recently enlisted Korean contract manufacturer ACE Engineering to manufacture the Powin BESS platform to be used for half of the project’s capacity.

Powin Energy recently also signed a 12-month, 3GWh battery cell supply deal with Rept, another Chinese manufacturer, which was notable in that Rept is classified Tier 2 by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. As noted by Energy-Storage.news in April as that deal was announced, Powin’s suppliers are a mix of Tier 1 makers like CATL and EVE, as well as non-Tier 1.

Being able to get hold of batteries in time and on budget has been one of the key challenges for companies in the BESS space in recent years as the industry’s demand for lithium batteries grows in tandem with that from electric vehicles (EVs).

‘Flexible approach’

Powin’s Danny Lu has previously said that the company would like to be able to source cells from domestically-headquartered manufacturers for its US projects and hopes to do so in future.

The company did recently appoint contract manufacturer Jabil to start producing Powin’s Stack750E utility-scale BESS product in Florida, US, for integration into the Powin Centipede platform. Production will start in Q4 this year with an initial annual production capacity of 2GWh, with plans to double that over time.

Energy-Storage.news spoke about Powin’s strategy in a recent interview with company president Anthony Carroll (Premium access). Carroll said that while five years ago the role of a system integrator in the grid-scale space was in testing equipment and assuring customers that components like battery cells work properly, today it is “more about how can we build the massive amount of storage that we know the world needs with a very flexible approach”.

“We have five cell vendors, we have five factories, and we are the connecting tissue for all of that from BMS, EMS, the inverters, the power plant controller, we’ve created the Powin ecosystem,” Carroll said.

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Vaisala, a Finland-based company offering weather, environmental and industrial observation measurement products and services, has released its Automatic Weather Station AWS810 Solar Edition.

The IEC-compliant weather station enables a combination of solar irradiance and key weather parameter measurements with optional advanced analytics and digital insights to enhance solar power plant performance and operational efficiency.

Reliable and accurate, the weather station is flexible, smart and easily configurable to adapt to future needs. Rugged by design, the AWS810 Solar Edition is purpose-built to be trusted for a solar plant’s entire operational life span.

“The 360-degree, always-on monitoring and analytic capabilities combined with the modular design delivers a robust and scalable performance that optimizes operations at any point in the solar power plant life cycle — from development, construction and commissioning to operations and life cycle management,” says Davy Theophile, head of renewable energy at Vaisala.

Vaisala AWS810 Solar Edition provides unique benefits, including:

Accurate sensor data: Continuously measures global, diffuse and reflected solar irradiation and weather parameters, including wind speed and direction, ambient and PV module temperature, precipitation, relative humidity and atmospheric pressure.

Reduced life cycle costs: The ruggedly designes and user friendly weather station requires minimal resources to set up, operate and maintain.

Effortless operations, maintenance: Self-diagnostic and network sensor monitoring enables users to manage and control networks remotely, while built-in data validation further improves data quality and maintenance efficiency.

Unlimited scalability, easy integration: Forward-thinking modular design allows easy expansion to meet specific solar power plant needs, including seamless data connectivity with SCADA systems and cloud-based asset management platforms.

Critical insights: Primed to go beyond the standard with optional analytics and insights related to historical satellite-derived solar data, real-time lightning data and solar energy forecasts.

Leveraging more than 85 years of scientific innovation in providing best-in-class weather and environmental measurements and observations, Vaisala is committed to helping the world adapt to the climate change challenge. The need for increasing overall renewable energy production is becoming ever more important. Vaisala is positioned to provide solutions to enable optimization throughout every stage of the renewable energy life cycle.

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Steve Luker

Turtle, a privately held electrical and industrial distributor, and Catalyze, a national clean energy transition company, are joining forces. Their goal is to expand the availability of energy-efficient solutions to commercial and industrial entities in order to help them achieve their net zero carbon and sustainability goals.

Turtle will team up with Catalyze to market its offering to finance, install, own and operate integrated renewable energy solutions with no upfront capital costs — with renewable energy assets owned and operated by Catalyze. As the partnership evolves, Catalyze will integrate Turtle’s supplier solutions into those projects.

“This initiative showcases our approach to radical collaboration with partners, suppliers and customers to engage early in the design process and co-create next-generation solutions in energy transformation,” says Turtle CEO Kathleen Shanahan.

As it embarks on its second century of innovation, Turtle is advancing energy-efficient technology and infrastructure solutions to re-engineer workspaces, harvest sunlight, scale EV charging options and reduce light pollution for large facilities.

By enabling its customers to conserve and produce their own power, Turtle also helps them remain focused on their core business while hitting their sustainability targets.

Catalyze owns and operates renewable energy assets and infrastructure for property owners and operators. Its advanced technology, financial expertise, industry experience and customer service enable their clients to profitably harness the benefits of solar, storage and EV charging solutions.

Says Steve Luker, Catalyze CEO: “We’re proud to collaborate with Turtle to demonstrate that leveraging technology, innovative contracting, and vertically integrated capabilities can make it easy and profitable to meet ESG and operational goals.”

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North Carolina-based energy holding company, Duke Energy has reached an agreement to sell its unregulated utility-scale commercial renewables business to Brookfield Renewable, owners and operators of renewable power and climate transition assets, at an enterprise value of approximately $2.8 billion, including non-controlling tax equity interests and the assumption of debt.

Duke Energy’s expected net proceeds from this transaction are approximately $1.1 billion, subject to certain customary adjustments. Duke Energy will use the proceeds to strengthen its balance sheet and avoid additional holding company debt issuances. The company will then focus on growth of its regulated businesses, including investments to enhance grid reliability and help incorporate over 30,000 MW of regulated renewable energy into its system by 2035.

“This sale is an important step in our transition into a purely regulated company with significant grid and clean energy investment plans that will deliver benefits to our customers and stakeholders,” says Lynn Good, Duke Energy chair, president and CEO.

The sale agreement includes more than 3,400 MWAC of utility-scale solar, wind and battery storage across the U.S., net of joint venture partners ownership, in addition to operations, new project development and current projects under construction. The primary operations of the commercial renewables business will remain in Charlotte, N.C. and the Duke Energy employees that support the business will transition to Brookfield to maintain business continuity for its operations and customers.

“With this acquisition, we are adding a scale operating renewable platform with a full suite of in-house capabilities and a proven management team,” says Connor Teskey, CEO of Brookfield Renewable. “We are also adding to our pipeline of renewable development projects, solidifying our position as one of the largest renewable energy businesses in the U.S. with almost 90,000 MW of operating and development assets.”

The sale is subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the expiration of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. It is expected to close by the end of this year.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Wells Fargo Securities LLC are serving as financial advisors to Duke Energy for this transaction. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is serving as legal counsel to Duke Energy.

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Canadian Solar Inc., a solar technology and renewable energy company, headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, is in the process of establishing a solar PV module production facility in Mesquite, Texas.

Canadian Solar’s first United States manufacturing facility, the solar photovoltaic module manufacturing plant will have an annual output of 5 GW, equivalent to approximately 20,000 high-power modules per day.

The new facility represents an investment of over $250 million and will create approximately 1,500 skilled jobs once it is fully ramped up. Production is expected to begin around the end of 2023.

Canadian Solar has had a successful track record of production in Canada, China, Brazil, Thailand and Vietnam. In 2021, Canadian Solar relocated Recurrent Energy, its 17-year-old U.S. subsidiary, to Austin, spearheading the rapid growth of renewable energy in the Lone Star State as a solar and battery storage project developer.

Emphasizing the importance of this new facility, Dr. Shawn Qu, founder and CEO of Canadian Solar, says: “We hope that this is the first of many long-term investments we expect to make in the U.S. as we think strategically about a sustainable and resilient clean energy supply chain. We thank the State of Texas, Dallas County and the City of Mesquite for their critical support and we look forward to working with them as we grow.”

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Growth this year is expected to be much higher, at 72% year-on-year, with 73GWh deployed versus 43GWh last year, Rystad said. It attributed this to cost reductions for BESS, national funding and incentive programmes in the US and Europe, and strong capacity expansion in China.

BESS can play a wide variety of roles. In the case of residential and commercial systems, the technology is mainly used to optimise energy use, while grid-scale systems today typically provide grid balancing services to grid operators, balance peaks and troughs in energy prices by trading in the electricity market, and provide capacity under agreements as with other renewables like solar and wind.

In the future, BESS will play an increasing role as a transmission asset. The largest BESS integrator globally Fluence has made this a strategic focus recently.

Rystad also broke down BESS installations by region in the graphic below. While North America is currently the largest single region and will be for a few years, Rystad expects Asia to overtake it by the end.

As Rystad mentioned, part of the steady pickup in deployments this year is thanks to falls in the cost compared to last year. The increase in BESS costs last year was well-documented by Energy-Storage.news, with one industry leader telling us that the cost base had grown 25% year-on-year, driven by battery cells.

Another research outlet BloombergNEF said that BESS costs have fallen by 2% in the last six months, in a note published last week (7 June). It attributed half of the fall in cost to a steady decline in the price of lithium carbonate from all-time highs last year.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 1st Energy Storage Summit Asia, 11-12 July 2023 in Singapore. The event will help give clarity on this nascent, yet quickly growing market, bringing together a community of credible independent generators, policymakers, banks, funds, off-takers and technology providers. For more information, go to the website.

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The 137MWac BESS is a 4-hour duration asset (548MWh) and will be paired with a 150MW solar PV power plant, currently under construction and expected to be completed by August.

It continues a relatively prolific run of battery storage projects for the company, which is currently executing what are thought to be the biggest projects of their kind under construction in Germany – two systems totalling 220MW/235MWh in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

It appears that RWE has not publicly said much about Fifth Standard prior to yesterday’s announcement. That’s perhaps because the solar-plus-storage plant’s development was kicked off by fellow Germany-headquartered energy company E.On’s clean energy arm – the assets of which were transferred to RWE as part of a complicated asset swap deal completed in 2020.

According to a 2018 report from local news outlet The Sentinel, E.On’s EC&R Solar Development subsidiary submitted permitting applications for the solar and storage facility in California’s Fresno County 2018. At that stage, EC&R Solar Development was seeking to build a 150MW solar PV plant, and a separate 20MW PV plant coupled with a 20MW/80MWh BESS.

In 2022, Fifth Standard was included in a list of projects in the service area of California investor-owned utility (IOU) Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) that could be connected to the CAISO grid without a requirement for transmission system buildout excepting for relatively minor remedial action scheme (RAS) work, in this case a generation tie-in line.

The BESS is connected to the grid via an existing PG&E substation, while RWE said the solar-plus-storage plant is designed to support biodiversity on the site – in line with the company’s strategy for US solar projects. It will also generate a US$10 million contribution to the local tax base during its lifetime, and around 300 workers employed to work on it during peak construction.

Other recent US projects from RWE include one of the country’s biggest DC-coupled solar-plus-storage systems. Hickory Park in Georgia is a 196MW ground mount solar PV plant with a 20MW/80MWh BESS, which went online in mid-2022. The company is currently also working on Texas Waves II, a 30MW/30MWh BESS co-located with a wind farm in Texas.

Among other notable BESS-related developments for RWE include a recently awarded contract for an 8-hour duration 50MW battery storage project through a state government tender in New South Wales, Australia.

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The developer, which is active across Europe but primarily the UK, said construction on the BESS will start in 2025.

The news last week coincided with Regulatory Authority for Energy, Networks and the Environment (Autorità di Regolazione per Energia Reti e Ambiente or ARERA) approving new criteria and conditions for large-scale energy storage in the electricity market. The new rules will allow Terna to run large-scale auctions for the technology, which sources expect to take place in late 2023/early 2024.

Aura Power was supported by local law firm Legance on getting the project to this stage. Cristina Martorana, partner at the firm, commented:

“I still remember when Aura Power called me 5 years ago asking for legal support in the BESS field of law for this pioneer project. At that time, the legal framework was completely missing.”

“Now the Maddaloni project is a reality thanks to the forward-looking approach of Aura Power, their resilience and the great cooperation and professionalism shown by all the competent authorities involved in the authorization procedure. Thanks also to the Maddaloni project, Legance can claim a unique expertise and knowledge in the relevant market.”

The grid-scale energy storage market in Italy looks set to grow substantially in the coming years, kickstarted by big wins in Fast Reserve and Capacity Market auctions in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Business cases are being built mainly around capacity markets, energy trading and renewable load shifting, which Aura Power’s four-hour duration is indicative of.

Energy-Storage.news looked at the Italian market for a special feature in the 35th quarterly edition of PV Tech Power, available here (Premium access).

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