Thomas Byrne

CleanCapital, a clean energy company based in the U.S. and focused on middle market solar and storage, has received an additional commitment of up to $500 million from Toronto-based Manulife Investment Management. The company will leverage this investment to fund early-stage solar and storage development and acquire renewable energy assets throughout the United States, as well as expand its partnerships in emerging markets.

Additionally, CleanCapital has surpassed a major investment milestone: the cumulative deployment of more than $1 billion to fund operating, new construction and early-stage development solar and storage assets.

Already one of the largest commercial solar asset owners in the U.S., CleanCapital continues to lead the clean energy transition by connecting institutional capital to the myriad opportunities available in the middle market sector.

“Our team’s climate investing capabilities, combined with our rigorous and highly institutionalized process, have earned the trust of the world’s leading institutional investors,” comments Thomas Byrne, CEO of CleanCapital. “This second infusion of balance sheet capital follows the successful deployment of Manulife Investment Management’s original $300 million investment, announced in 2021. This is our largest raise to date and will enable CleanCapital to play a key role in leading the energy transition to meet our nation’s net-zero emissions targets.”

CleanCapital’s investments comprise a diverse renewables portfolio of more than 200 distributed generation projects totaling 400 MW and spanning 26 states and one U.S. territory, as well as corporate investments in renewable energy project developers.

The company has established successful partnerships with multiple emerging and notable developers by focusing on key relationships and areas of opportunity.

Within the last year, CleanCapital has made major moves in the solar and storage market, most notably in emerging and underinvested markets.

“We are delighted to continue our partnership with CleanCapital. Distributed solar and storage is a swiftly growing market, and our commitment to investing in assets that support the global shift towards clean energy and GHG reduction remains steadfast,” says Recep Kendircioglu, global head of infrastructure, Manulife Investment Management.

As a leading investor and owner-operator of solar and storage assets, CleanCapital will continue to build its portfolio by applying its veteran expertise to acquiring, developing, constructing and operating high-performing projects.

Kirkland & Ellis and Baker McKenzie represented CleanCapital and Manulife, respectively, as legal advisors on this transaction.

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Civil works on the site began late last year, and the facility will have an annual production capacity of 6GWh with the potential to increase that to 12GWh.

It will serve both the EV and stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) sectors, the latter of which Kore itself recently entered through the acquisition of a system integrator. It has recently been winning mediums-sized BESS project deals, including one in Arkansas and another in Illinois which involves replacing an entire battery fleet (Premium access).

“This support from the LPO will help KORE expand its U.S. leadership in the rapidly growing energy storage and e-mobility sectors while growing our business, allowing us to power the energy transition with American products,” said KORE’s Chief Financial Officer Alexander Nickolatos. 

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly added: “This is big news for Arizona and the country, supporting KORE Power’s gigafactory in Arizona will bring manufacturing back to America for a critical supply chain, while creating good-paying jobs.”

“The administration is taking advantage of the resources we provided through the Inflation Reduction Act to not just boost jobs in Arizona, but also to strengthen our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign sources of battery components for everything from electric vehicles to energy storage.”

It was also recently revealed that one of the investors in a US$75 million fundraising round that Kore completed last year is Energy Vault, the company known for its gravity energy storage solution. Energy-Storage.news published an interview with Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi last week (Premium access).

The loan announcement by the LPO comes after Energy-Storage.news revealed that the US now has more planned lithium-ion production capacity than Europe (Premium access), with generous tax credit incentives for both battery production and BESS deployment provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.

It is part of the US’ now taking a more “aggressive stance” on climate change, LPO head Jigar Shah told Energy-Storage.news in an interview at the start of the year.

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It is specially designed for installation at challenging sites such as those in water conservation areas or at risk from forest fires, while in some cases, the extra safety could be a requirement of insurers.

Basically, it surrounds the battery energy storage system (BESS) in a “spatial system, similar to a fire protected building,” and the concept came about after the companies worked together on a customer project, Tesvolt product manager Rudolf Frikker told Energy-Storage.news.

The “unique combination” of Tesvolt battery storage systems with the certified spatial enclosure makes it fire safe “from outside as well as from inside for 90 minutes,” Frikker said. The spatial system comes with air conditioning as standard, and customers can add extra features like gas sensors and fire extinguishing equipment.

“The partnership developed when cooperating on another project where Tesvolt has already integrated an energy storage system into a Denios spatial system. We realised that, together, we could offer a solution that has not been available on the market up to now,” Frikker said.

Available for commercial and industrial (C&I) installations from 80kWh up to the multiple megawatt-hour range and based on Tesvolt’s TS HV 30-80E series of BESS solutions, the dual-frame protection offered by Denios’ spatial system is certified to fire safety standards F 90 / REI 90 / REI 120 / REI 60.

Frikker also pointed out that the Tesvolt BESS solutions are also built with safety in mind: in addition to sending complete systems to certification body TÜV Rheinland for testing, the company works with TÜV Rheinland safety experts during the product development phase.

Tesvolt also touted its use of prismatic lithium-ion battery cells, as well as the cell-level voltage monitoring capabilities of its battery management system (BMS), meaning its systems switch to a safe state if any issues arise.

Being certified as fire-safe for up to 90 minutes also means that Tesvolt systems with the Denios protective housing can be installed without a minimum clearance requirement to adjacent buildings, while Tesvolt product manager Rudolf Frikker also claimed the spatial system can be designed to allow for expansion of the storage system size at a later date.

In February, Tesvolt said it would be investing €60 million (US$64 million at the time) into its manufacturing facilities in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, aiming to reach 4GWh of annual energy storage system production capacity during 2024.

‘Clear need’ for training on safety topics

Denios, as a specialist manufacturing engineering company and consultancy, has a lot of experience with lithium batteries. The Denios “spatial concept” has already been used for “several years” for storing lithium batteries and other hazardous materials, which meant the company’s technologies already obtained the necessary fire safety certifications.

“Multiple fire tests with battery systems have already been carried out in the Denios spatial system,” Rudolf Frikker said, such as a burner being used for 120 minutes on the critical construction elements of the spatial system to get REI 120 certification.

In these tests, “a corresponding measurement temperature must not be exceeded and the flames must not break through during this time,” Frikker said.

Tesvolt has not found that customers are concerned about fire safety so much, but insurers, local fire departments and surveyors often do, and so a solution like this one could be relevant.

Frikker said the company believes current safety standards “are more than sufficient,” although it would be better if safety standards could be consolidated, allowing authorities or insurers to carry out approval procedures for projects more quickly and easily.

Tesvolt did believe however that there is “a lot of half-knowledge” when it comes to safety, and a “clear need for training” among distributors, installers and other stakeholders such as end users.

“Not only installers have to be trained here, but also planners, authorities, fire brigade, basically everyone who designs, plans, installs battery storage systems and those who create tenders,” Rudolf Frikker said.

Fire safety continues to be a major talking point for the battery storage industry, with incidents rare but nonetheless holding the potential to shake confidence in the industry if and when they do happen.

Manufacturers and system integrators now routinely put out press announcements regarding their systems’ certifications and testing. For example, Wärtsilä recently said it has put its grid-scale BESS product, GridSolv Quantum, through a more rigorous testing regime than industry standards require, and Sungrow said last month that it became one of only a small handful of providers certified to supply battery storage systems for New York City.

Read more of Energy-Storage.news’ coverage of fire safety across the industry here.

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The scheme will see grants of up to €25 million per beneficiary though the full details of the decision will only be made available “once any confidentiality issues have been resolved”.

The announcement said the money will “accelerate the deployment of investments in renewable energy production and energy storage, with the aim to foster the transition to a net-zero economy”, including heat.

The money will be granted no later than 31 December, 2025, it added.

While this particular scheme in Slovenia is through the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework, other similar schemes supporting energy storage have been under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, which was created to mitigate the negative economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Romania, Finland and Greece‘s use of the latter to fund market-wide energy storage investments have been approved by the EU, as reported by Energy-Storage.news, while Croatia and Estonia are also funding projects (though potentially from other programmes).

A few grid-scale battery storage projects are already underway in Slovenia, including two units totalling 60MW co-located with a run-of-river hydroelectric plant, as well as a new pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) system from utility DEM.

The country is also trialling a cross-border grid synchronisation programme using 50MWh of battery storage with neighbouring Croatia, in a project which is also partially EU-funded.

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This webinar is tailored for asset owners, operators, and individuals interested in BESS deployment and operations. With expert speakers and real-world case studies, the discussion will offer practical knowledge and strategies to de-risk the deployment and operations of BESS.

Featuring short presentations from TWAICE followed by a 15 minute Q&A session, the webinar explores:

• How Digital Commissioning can help asset owners ensure maximum availability of their BESS during the critical initial years of operation, laying the groundwork for a successful, reliable and profitable business.

• The benefits of in-life analytics, which enable continuous monitoring and optimisation of BESS performance throughout an asset’s entire lifetime.

Speakers in this webinar:

Sebastian Becker, director of partnerships and industrial strategy for energy, TWAICE

Ryan Franks, senior technical solution engineer, TWAICE

Moderator:

Andy Colthorpe, editor, Energy-Storage.news

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You can also access the recording for “De-risk and protect your battery storage asset from the very start with Digital Commissioning and In-Life Analytics” on-demand at the site and receive presentation slide deck (registration required), at the site here.

You can read more about cloud-based battery analytics in the newest edition of our quarterly journal, PV Tech Power (Vol.35), included in the Energy-Storage.news Premium subscription. Each edition of PV Tech Power features ‘Storage & Smart Power’, a dedicated mini-journal contributed by the Energy-Storage.news team. Learn more about PV Tech Power here, or about ESN Premium here.

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SolRiver Capital, a renewable energy investment firm, has unveiled plans for the Canyonville Solar Project, which will combine sustainable energy generation with agricultural practices. Canyonville, located in Myrtle Creek, will be the first Oregon Community Solar Program available in Douglas County, helping residents there and throughout the state to save money every month.

The Canyonville Solar Project will create a pathway to energy independence for the community. And now, not only those who own their own homes and have ample roof

Subscribers will become active participants in the clean energy transition, supporting local agriculture, driving sustainable development and saving money on their energy bills while building a sense of community.

With respect for the land, neighbors’ views and area wildlife, and screened from public scrutiny behind trees on all sides, Canyonville will integrate several agrisolar features:

Dual Use: Solar panels will be positioned to enable certain crops to thrive, optimizing land utilization and promoting food production alongside renewable energy generation.

Goats for Mowing: Local goats, and other grazing animals, will be allowed to eat overgrown grass, reducing the need for mechanical lawnmowers.

Bee Hives: Beekeepers will maintain beehive boxes on the property, providing benefits to farmers throughout the county.

Critter-Friendly Fences: Special fences will allow small animals, such as turtles, squirrels and rabbits, to run freely through the site and prevent larger animals like cattle from wandering in.

Biodiversity Enhancement: By cultivating diverse ecosystems, native plants and pollinator-friendly vegetation will be thoughtfully integrated, fostering ecological balance and supporting the flourishing of local wildlife.

Seamlessly blending solar energy and sustainable farming practices, the Canyonville Solar project will unlock a future where energy self-sufficiency and environmental stewardship go hand in hand.

Image by FitMum from Pixabay.

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Made up of five sizeable power plant sites, two of which are expected to progress to ready-to-build status by the end of this year, as reported by our colleagues at PV Tech last week, all of the portfolio projects are being planned for co-location with energy storage systems, the largest of which would be 200MW/400MWh and the rest half that size.

In a recent interview for our quarterly journal, PV Tech Power (Vol.35), Francesco Cardi and Westbridge special advisor Alex Dickinson discussed the projects with particular regard to their pairing with energy storage.

Dickinson explained that the solar PV and battery storage would share a common grid interconnection. With the solar grid connection only being utilised roughly for 11%-12% of the hours in the year, the battery has access to the grid for the majority of the time.

That means that in addition to selling the solar energy during daytime hours, the batteries can be monetised through providing services to the grid, via a “host of activities”.

“We do think it’s complimentary from a commercial point of view, not least that the batteries can offer the services that asynchronous generation can’t offer, [in other words], grid stabilisation,” Dickinson said.

“The main driver [for storage in Alberta] in my opinion is that storage is essentially following the need for, and is complementary to solar and to solve the intermittency of renewables,” Cardi said.

“Therefore, being Alberta, a leader in the solar and renewable energy space, the need for storage systems is manifesting most in this region to assist in the intermittency and in balancing; the grid services and the load of these renewable energy assets.”

Alberta’s electric system operator expected to open up market

However, at this stage, it isn’t entirely clear which services the batteries will be able to provide. The transmission system and wholesale market operator, Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), is currently working through regulatory questions over a framework for participation by energy storage systems.

The AESO has only just completed a set of investigations into those topics in April, Dickinson said, with Westbridge Renewable Energy involved in the consultation process “with regard to things like revenue stacking, etc.”

“This would mean that asset owners and developers would be able to “get complimentary activities from the batteries under contract, rather than having to cubbyhole batteries into one pocket and solar into a different [pocket], so that you’re looking at the entire electricity grid stabilisation, which drives towards the low carbon economy and indeed to lower pricing.”

Alberta has become a “great place” for solar development due to the “straightforward, very well planned” approach the province has taken, Cardi said. It is also not a solar market in danger of saturation, with abundant land and existing transmission infrastructure between its major demand centres Edmund and Calgary.

Cardi said it is just a matter of time before regulations for energy storage catch up too, which is why Westbridge intends to add storage to its solar PV plants, but potentially at a later date.

Westbridge is targeting getting its first two projects, the ‘flagship’ Georgetown project, a  278MWdc PV plant with scope to add 100MW/200MWh of battery storage and Sunnynook, a 236MWdc PV plant with the same amount of storage, into construction early in 2024. It announced the fifth and newest addition to its development portfolio, Red Willow Project, combining 295MWp solar with 100MW/200MWh BESS, in February this year.

Each of its five announced projects have been going through the lengthy process of getting grid connection approval, and this week the company said Sunnynook has now followed Georgetown in getting Power Plant and Battery Storage approval, as well as a substation permit and license from the Alberta Utilities Commission.

Westbridge is aiming to then file applications with the regulator for interconnection approvals for Sunnynook in Q4 of this year, hopeful that it and Georgetown can reach ready-to-build status before the end of 2024.

Following the agreement to sell its five projects to Mytilineos developer subsidiary Metka, Westbridge Renewable Energy retains ownership of the project special purpose vehicle (SPV) companies until the deal closes.  Francesco Cardi and Alex Dickinson described Westbridge as a developer in the classic sense, which will move on from projects once they transfer ownership at the stage when construction is ready to begin.

You can read more about Alberta and Ontario, Canada’s two leading provinces for energy storage development in PV Tech Power Vol.35, which is out now. Subscription to the quarterly journal, is included as part of the Energy-Storage.news Premium service. Every edition of PV Tech Power includes ‘Storage & Smart Power’, a dedicated section contributed by the Energy-Storage.news team.

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When announced last year, the project was hailed as an “ambitious plan” by the International Hydropower Association when announced last year, which could be “an example to policy-makers around the world that we do not need to seek out new technology to bring the climate crisis under control, nor do we need to fall back on fossil fuels,” according to the association’s chief executive Eddie Rich.

Its part of a total AU$62 billion (US$41.5 billion) package to invest in the state economy’s clean energy transition and future energy security, alongside investments in large-scale and distributed battery energy storage systems (BESS) and other measures including support for continued rollout of rooftop solar PV.

Queensland is already host to Australia’s first new pumped hydro storage plant in around 40 years, Kidston II, a 250MW facility currently under construction, but the spending plan, announced in the state budget shortly after state premier Annastacia Palaszczuk set a 70% renewable energy by 2032 policy target. The plan also adds Pioneer-Burdekin and another hydro plant at Borumba Dam to the state portfolio, with the government kicking off feasibility studies in mid-2022.

At that time, the premier also reaffirmed that Queensland’s energy sector will remain in public ownership, and pledged investment in transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure to create a Queensland ‘Supergrid’.

The government said yesterday that Water2Wire a specialist engineering company created as a joint venture (JV) between GHD, Mott MacDonald and Stantec, has been selected for Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) duties on Pioneer-Burdekin.

Water2Wire has offices in Mackay, Queensland, and is already working on FEED for the new Borumba Dam as well as Kidston II, and PHES projects in New Zealand and the UK.

A tender was also held to find a contractor for the project’s geotechnical shallow drilling programme, which is expected to take six months. Local engineering company Twin Hills Engineering and Drilling has been selected.

“The Pioneer-Burdekin Pumped Hydro Project is the cornerstone of the Queensland Energy and Jobs Plan, and will be the largest pumped hydro scheme in the world,” Queensland energy minister Mick deBrenni said.

“This mega pumped hydro project will act like a giant battery, and when connected to our Queensland SuperGrid, will underpin the reliability of our publicly owned grid by storing the energy generated by our renewable energy zones (REZ).”

Meanwhile, a major planned maintenance work an existing pumped hydro plant, Wivenhoe, is underway, the government said at the beginning of June. A 285MW turbine unit, one of two at the plant, is being worked on, with the AU$17 million refurbishment being carried out on one unit at a time so that the facility can keep operating throughout. The other unit’s refurbishment, due every five years, was completed in 2021.

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 Carne Solar Project (Carne) – a 130 MW AC solar + 65 MW AC battery storage facility, located in Luna County, N.M. and owned by D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) – has been granted regulatory approval by the New Mexico Public Regulatory Commission (NMPRC) of its offtake contracts with El Paso Electric (EPE).

DESRI’s fourth New Mexico solar venture and its second in Luna County, the project has a 20-year power purchase agreement and energy storage agreement with EPE, a regional energy provider that is engaged in generation, transmission and distribution service to approximately 460,000 customers in west Texas and southern New Mexico.

The facility is expected to generate enough clean energy to power approximately 38,000 homes each year, according to metrics provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. Approval by the NMPRC is a critical step in Carne’s development and its advancement towards start of construction. Commercial operation is anticipated in 2025.

“DESRI is thrilled with the Carne project’s continued progress toward construction start and producing power for New Mexicans. [It] will deliver new, cost-effective, clean energy to EPE’s customers, as well as energy storage that will provide crucial grid stability to the region,” says Hy Martin, chief development officer of DESRI, the project’s owner and operator.

Also contributing to EPE’s mission to reach 100% decarbonization of its generation portfolio by 2045, Carne is expected to deliver significant community benefits, including the creation of construction jobs and other local economic development.

Galehead Development and Lacuna Sustainable Investments were involved in the initial development of the project.

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“We are excited to share that KCE NY 6 is officially coming online, which is a major step towards New York’s ambitious goal of achieving 70% renewable energy by 2030,” said Taylor Quarles, vice-president, Development for KCE. 

The project received US$5 million from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Bulk Market Acceleration Bridge Incentive Program, back in November 2020, starting construction a year later.

It is the developer’s third project to come online in New York state after its 20MW KCE NY 1 and 3MW KCE NY 3 projects. KCE NY6 connects to the grid operator by National Grid, an overseas arm of the UK’s grid operator of the same name.

NYSERDA president and CEO Doreen M. Harris: “KCE NY 6 is part of a growing portfolio of bulk energy storage projects that will help make renewables like wind and solar available when and where they are needed most, reduce the use of obsolete peaker plants, and ultimately lower statewide electric system costs.”

However, the Bulk Market programme did not fulfil its full potential with only a few other developers winning the incentives. A new incentive programme has been brought in to procure the large-scale storage the State needs to hit a 6GW by 2030 deployment target.

Key Capture CEO Jeff Bishop discussed the state’s road to meeting its energy storage deployment targets in an interview with Energy-Storage.news published in April.

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