Stefano Romanin

Westbridge Renewable Energy Corp. has completed the interconnection studies for its Accalia Point Solar Project, located in Cameron County, Texas.

The company says it is currently working toward negotiation of an interconnection agreement with Sharyland Utilities, a Texas-based electric transmission utility, to advance the project to its construction phase.

“The timely completion of the Accalia Point Solar project’s interconnection and environmental studies represents a significant step forward in de-risking and advancing our first U.S. project toward commercialization,” says Stefano Romanin, CEO and director of Westbridge Renewable.

“With the U.S. setting ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing renewable energy generation, and securing local energy production, solar energy developments are now recognized as indispensable,” he adds.

The Accalia Point project includes long-term solar leases covering approximately 1,120 acres of primarily cultivated farmland, with an installed capacity of 221 MW.

The interconnection studies help determine the methodology and cost involved to interconnect the project to the local transmission owner’s electric grid. Engineering fieldwork and environmental field studies were also completed and will be incorporated into the project’s final design and to comply with state and county regulations.

The project is anticipated to be commissioned in early 2025.

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Bret Labadie

Pivot Energy has closed a $203 million financing facility to support a multi-state portfolio of distributed generation solar projects.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank, will lead the debt facilities, and Foss & Co. will make the initial tax equity investment.

The 100 MW DC portfolio comprises 35 community solar and C&I projects planned to reach commercial operation between Q2 2023 and Q2 2024.

The financing is Pivot’s second portfolio of projects the company will build, own and operate since its strategic acquisition by ECP in June 2021. The installations are in Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, New York, Hawaii, Maryland and California.

The debt transaction by SVB includes a construction loan, tax equity bridge loan and term loan.

“I am thrilled to continue this partnership and show the broader community solar space that SVB and First Citizens Bank remain committed to this important asset class,” says Bret Labadie, CFO of Pivot Energy.

CohnReznick Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Pivot Energy on the transaction.

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Apex Clean Energy and Powin LLC are working on a pair of new battery storage projects in Texas: Angelo Storage, co-located with the 195 MW Angelo Solar Project, and Great Kiskadee Storage.

Apex developed and will construct, own and operate the projects, each of which will deliver 100 MW/200 MWh of capacity to the Texas grid with a two-hour battery duration. Powin is providing its Centipede platform and StackOS battery management system.

StackOS provides energy arbitrage and ancillary grid services to the ERCOT market, which are critical for maintaining grid reliability. The storage systems will absorb excess solar or wind generation when demand is low and discharge when energy usage is high, ensuring adequate power supply while allowing the grid to operate more efficiently and flexibly.

“As Texas experiences more extreme weather conditions in both summer and winter months, there’s a growing need for cleaner and more reliable energy,” says Geoff Brown, CEO of Powin. “With visibility and control down to the battery cell level, our platform can respond to changing grid conditions in real-time. As these new storage projects are deployed, ERCOT customers in the region will have the assurance of a climate-resilient grid backed by Powin’s technology.”

“Texas already leads the nation in operating wind and solar capacity; adding battery storage will support ERCOT with grid reliability, encouraging additional renewable development in the Lone Star State,” adds Mark Goodwin, president and CEO of Apex. “Battery storage is a crucial component of our nation’s energy transition, and Apex is investing accordingly, with 11.6 GW of utility-scale storage in our development portfolio.

Together, the projects will generate more than $24.4 million in tax revenue and approximately 100 jobs during construction.

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Scott Peattie

Prologis has selected Station A to host a request for quotes (RFQ) to identify regional solar providers to install 116 solar projects throughout its California industrial building portfolio.

Prologis is aiming to deploy 1 GW of solar, supported by battery storage, by 2025. To reach this goal, Prologis needs to secure interconnection for a multitude of solar projects in the 100kW to 400 kW size range. To retain NEM 2.0 categorization, Prologis is seeking qualified installers for projects that have a three-year time frame.

Prologis will leverage Station A’s marketplace to find local developers in five regional markets across California.

The RFQ is now accepting proposals and will close on May 15. Solar developers looking to bid on this project can create a free account at stationa.com.

Station A’s Clean Energy Marketplace has originated 19 MW of onsite renewable projects and enables the collection of competitive project bids from contractors and EPCs in a transparent and all-digital way.

“Prologis is always looking for ways to improve our service to our customers,” says Scott Peattie, vice president, C&I energy solutions, at Prologis. “We’re excited to partner with Station A to help expand our installation partner network. Their large network of contractors and flexible approach to soliciting proposals in the market fit our needs well.”

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Having gone public in 2020 via a SPAC merger, one of several companies in the energy storage space to have done so, the company said at the time that reaching profitability would take time, but projected for it to happen during this year.

Its revenues for the first quarter 2023 (Q1 2023) stood at US$67 million, a 63% increase from Q1 2022, while bookings increased 141% and now stand at a value of US$364 million. While the Q1 2023 revenue figure sits at the higher end of guidance, non-GAAP gross margin was 19%, which CEO John Carrington said was also in line with previously offered guidance.

Carrington said in an earnings call to explain results that “…accelerating services growth will be the key factor that helps us achieve our goals this year, and for years to come,” with energy storage services revenues up 22% sequentially and solar PV services revenues up 7%.

“We are currently pursuing several significant software-only and professional services deals that we expect may close later this year,” the CEO said, adding that those types of deals generate higher margins and revenues can be recognised much more quickly than for projects which have longer development and commissioning cycles.

Supply chain issues that impacted both the storage and solar industries are easing, he said, while Carrington and CFO Bill Bush spent time in China recently meeting “the largest OEMs,” with plans to add “multiple Tier 1 hardware vendors”.

Supply chains easing, interconnection remains a challenge

In response to an analyst question regarding supply chain, grid interconnection, permitting delays and other causes for bottlenecks referred to by the company in previous quarters, Bush said that new capacity with lower prices is being seen in the energy storage market, helping the supply chain situation.

Bush said however that interconnection is an area where the market is more challenging, which is “not a problem that’s going to get solved overnight”. It is perhaps however, if looked at in a different way, a strong indicator of just how much demand there is for energy storage and other clean energy technologies, the CFO said.

Solving it will involve simplifying applications for grid interconnection and working at the local utility level.

“We’re definitely seeing some speeding up, particularly in our primary markets in ERCOT and in New England ISO. But it’s definitely something that has not been solved just yet,” Bush said.

Carrington also talked up the company’s position in two of its key markets on either coast of the US: ISO New England and California, with the Stem fleet of aggregated virtual power plant (VPP) assets in the latter responding to 110% more site events year-on-year and a 250% increase in demand response calls. Despite this activity, no degradation in performance of its portfolio has been recorded, the CEO claimed.

Things the company can look forward to are the growth of its electric vehicle (EV) charger-related business, a launch of Stem’s own modular energy storage system (ESS) solution for larger customer projects, and ongoing standardisation of the company’s Athena software platform which drives its energy management and market-facing activities.  

For now, adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2023 stood at a loss of US$13.7 million, down from US$12.8 million in Q1 last year. Stem’s net loss was US$44.8 million for the first quarter ending 31 March 2023, versus a US$22.5 million net loss in Q1 2022.

However, revenues have been on an upward trajectory for several quarters. In February, the company reported that its Q4 2022 and full-year 2022 revenues were both up by almost 200% year-on-year.

In the earnings call last week, Carrington reaffirmed Stem Inc’s guidance, which includes 65% revenue growth by the mid-point of 2023 and achieving positive EBITDA during the second half of this year.

Read all of Energy-Storage.news’ coverage of Stem Inc.

Conference call transcript by Seeking Alpha.

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Apex has developed and will build, own and operate the projects, Angelo Storage and Great Kiskadee Storage. Angelo is co-located with the 195 MW Angelo Solar Project, in San Angelo, Tom Green County. A media statement did not give an expected commissioning date.

The projects will provide energy arbitrage, or energy trading, and ancillary grid services to help ERCOT maintain grid reliability. The ERCOT market is expected to move more towards trading as the capacity of battery storage projects begins to outstrip the existing ancillary service market.

Geoff Brown, CEO of Powin, said: “With visibility and control down to the battery cell level, our platform can respond to changing grid conditions in real-time. As these new storage projects are deployed, ERCOT customers in the region will have the assurance of a climate-resilient grid backed by Powin’s technology.”

In concurrent news, engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm Linxon has signed an exclusivity agreement for a 100MW/200MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project with developer Available Power, also in Texas.

Available Power launched the Greenport project last year and previously expected it to reach COD (commercial operation date) in 2024, but has now pushed that back to Q1 2025. The developer partnered with Linxon on its pipeline of projects earlier this year so the award of Greenport does not come as a surprise.

Available Power’s VP business development Alex Krass discussed the partnership in an interview at the Energy Storage Summit USA in Austin, Texas, last month. Linxon is a joint venture between engineering firm SNC-Lavalin and Hitachi Energy.

“We sell the projects at NTP (notice-to-proceed) but with the Linxon relationship, we have the contracts, the equipment procured and everything in place, so it’s sort of a turnkey approach to the asset buyer who doesn’t need to bring any of that themselves. They just sign on the dotted line and provide the capital to bring it to fruition,” Krass told Energy-Storage.news.

Linxon will oversee the design, construction, installation, and testing of all equipment required for the BESS installation, including a 345/34.5kV, 130 MVA step-up power transformer, 345kV AIS equipment, battery enclosures, inverter skid with coupling transformer, inverter control system/EMS, and station auxiliary supply system.

Energy-Storage.news also interviewed Powin president Anthony Carroll at Energy Storage Summit USA. While discussing the implications of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in general terms, he said the following which tangentially touches on both of this week’s announcements:

“Rather than just build the cheapest project out there and then flip, I really think it (the IRA) changed people’s mindsets by creating a framework for people to see energy storage as a 20-year asset. That is because of the long-term investment that the US and other governments around the world are committing to the technology.”

Energy-Storage.news will be publishing a full interview with Carroll tomorrow.

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Chira Soria will have a nameplate power rating of 200MW and an energy storage capacity of 3,500MWh, indicating a discharge duration of 17.5 hours at full output. The facility will help balance the grid on Gran Canaria, which lies off the coast of Morocco, and is expected to come online in 2027.

Pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) technology works by pumping water from a lower reservoir into an upper one during times of surplus energy on the grid, and releasing it back down through the turbines to generate power when it is needed later. Chira Soria will use desalinated seawater.

PHES is the vast majority of deployed energy storage capacity today, but new projects can take up to a decade or more from inception to commissioning so are relatively few and far between. In some places, like the UK, some projects are essentially ready-to-build but need reforms to electricity markets in order to go ahead, according to their developers. Specifically, reforms which increase the market value of long-duration energy storage (LDES).

GE and Cobra were selected to deliver the project by Red Eléctrica, the transmission system operator for Spain and its overseas territories. The scope of work for the pair covers the design, supply, transport, and commissioning of the turbines, generators, main transformers and electrical balance-of-plant (BOP) equipment.

The PHES plant will be able to increase the production of renewable energy by 37% compared to a situation where the plant did not exist, the companies said. That will in turn increase the country’s annual renewable generation portion of electricity to 51%.

The plant will also improve energy security on the island, and save €122 million (US$134 million) in costs relating to importing fossil fuel energy resources.

Juan Bola Merino, Non-peninsular Territories’ System Operation director, Red Eléctrica, said: “Chira Soria is key to the Canary Islands’ electricity system. It has been designed with the highest environmental standards to guarantee its integration with the minimum visual impact, as 91% of the infrastructures are undergrounded.”

Pascal Radue, GE Hydro Solutions president and CEO, said: “As renewable energy generation from wind and solar is increasing in the Gran Canaria Island, this pumped storage project will help balance the grid by dispatching the energy when needed, still with renewable energy. Hydropower is the largest source of energy storage that exists right now and represents 95% of all energy stored today. Using water from the sea also demonstrates that with ingenuity, hydropower can reach new heights.”

It is GE’s second large PHES order as of late. In late 2022, it installed the first two of four turbines for a 1.2GW plant in China, as reported by Energy-Storage.news.

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Claiming to have received more than 7GWh of customer orders to date, Enervenue is set to open a factory with 1GWh annual production output in Kentucky by the end of this year. The company intends to invest more than US$1 billion to later ramp up the gigafactory to more than 20GWh annual production capacity.  

Targeting all segments from small residential to large-scale utility and commercial and industrial (C&I) in between, in order to meet the needs of the growing market for energy storage, UL testing and certification is a must for Enervenue, as it is for pretty much every technology company in the sector.

The claimed advantages of the nickel-hydrogen technology include safe operation at very low or high ambient temperatures, flexibility to go from high to low charge and discharge rates and cost-effectively provide storage durations of 2 hours to 12 hours with low requirements for the balance of system equipment.

Perhaps the most attractive feature is the battery’s ruggedness – it is designed for an operational lifetime of about 30 years, or equivalent to 30,000 cycles of charging and discharging, without degradation. The manufacturer has already rolled out a 20-year, 20,000 cycle warranty for its batteries, which comprise stacks of the Enervenue Energy Storage Vessel, a 1.2kWh ‘cell’, connected in series or parallel.

What are UL9540A and UL1973?

UL9540A data and findings are considered the industry standard for informing customers on fire safety of electrochemical energy storage technologies. Major lithium BESS players Wärtsilä and Fluence have revealed findings of their latest tests recently, both claiming them to be favourable.

The testing regime, primarily developed to assess the safety of lithium-ion battery tech, examines what happens when a battery cell goes into thermal runaway and then assesses how well designed the cells and rest of the system are to prevent a thermal event from propagating i.e., spreading, into other cells and other parts of the system.

Testers force a cell into thermal runaway, carrying out the test at progressively larger scales from cell upwards.

There isn’t a ‘pass or fail’ criteria, but test findings are widely shared and increasingly recognised as a critical piece of information when it comes to the bankability of an energy storage technology.

Other recent examples of this include Chinese lithium battery manufacturer CATL starting to conduct its own UL9540A tests in partnership with UL Solutions.

Enervenue said no flames were observed from its Energy Storage Vessels when thermal runaway was induced during testing. Unlike Li-ion cells that do flame, the Vessels do not require additional protection, the company claimed.

Enervenue CEO Jorg Heinemann said in a previous interview with Energy-Storage.news that this means the technology is not only safe, but also compact enough to be placed into even tight spaces in residential or commercial properties.

Meanwhile, the amount of nickel it uses is small enough for the company to not be anticipating production bottlenecks, the CEO said. Enervenue believes its technology “can beat lithium-ion,” according to Heinemann, with mass production making it increasingly cost-competitive.

UL1973 certification is awarded for energy storage systems proven to be operable safely, which includes evaluation of the system’s ability to tolerate abuse. Again, as such it is considered crucial to the bankability of energy storage products and solutions.

Flow battery providers ESS Inc and Invinity Energy Systems and liquid metal battery startup Ambri are among other non-lithium battery tech players like Enervenue to have gotten their UL1973 certifications.  

To learn more about UL9540A, watch our webinar with IHI Terrasun, featuring experts from DNV and QPS, ‘What experts think you should know about UL9540 codes and standards for battery storage,’ and to learn more about UL1973, watch our webinar with CSA Group, ‘Assessing the impact of updates to UL1973 for stationary energy storage systems’.

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Simson’s speech came just a couple of weeks after the commissioner described energy storage as a “centrepiece” of the energy transition, but one that had been overlooked, as the EC debated the role of the technologies with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

Once again, Simson played up the relevance of storage to the energy sector, and “key to building a future-proof, resilient and decarbonised energy system,” as the coalition and its partners gathered for the first time on 4 May.

“For many years, energy storage has been in the background of the power sector. But the fact is that energy storage and flexibility services are a self-standing sector that will transform our energy system,” Simson said, adding that the launch of the Energy Storage Coalition “sends an important signal,” and furthers the EC’s goal since 2016 to “unleash” the capabilities of storage – and other flexibility technologies such as demand response.

The triumvirate of leading European clean energy trade associations are joined by Bill Gates-founded cleantech accelerator Breakthrough Energy in the new Energy Storage Coalition.

Other discussions at the event focused on how the EC’s Electricity Market Design reform process – no doubt a subject regular readers of Energy-Storage.news will be familiar with by now – can address barriers to the deployment of storage technologies in Europe.

Kadri Simson has previously said storage and flexibility options need to be at the core of the market design framework, with proposed reforms including national objectives for European Union (EU) Member States to provide flexibility from non-fossil fuel sources, and allow transmission and distribution (T&D) operators to procure flexibility services during times of peak demand for power on the grid.

“Energy storage means more than adapting the energy system to changing needs and boosting the electrification of important sectors,” Simson said last week.

“On top of that, it reduces price fluctuations and lowers electricity prices during peak times; empowers consumers to adapt their energy consumption to prices and their needs; and allows for a real system change by replacing outdated flexibility technologies such as gas-fired installations with clean flexibility solutions.”

Other speakers at the launch included heads and representatives of Breakthrough Energy and the three trade associations, MEPs Emma Wiesener and Niels Fugelsang as well as industry representatives and the European Commission’s director for Green Transition and Energy System Integration, Catharina Sikow-Magny.

While recent reports have found significant growth in Europe’s energy storage market, it’s still considered a long way off the trajectory required to meet the continent’s energy security and decarbonisation goals.

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The company said yesterday (8 May 2023) that the LOI is for the financing of “up to US$300 million” of selected solar PV and battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, which for Nam Viet Green Energy means expansion into the US – one of the world’s leading solar and storage markets.

Meanwhile, the deal could help the Vietnamese company to bring “many commercially viable and advanced technologies and new battery supplies to the burgeoning Asia region,” Nam Viet CEO Nguyen Tan Hung said.

This would help the company to reduce its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) costs and increase operational efficiencies back home and in the wider Southeast Asia and Asian markets, the CEO said. Vietnam’s solar PV market has grown very rapidly on the back of a C&I feed-in tariff (FiT) policy, leading many including the Asian Development Bank to conclude that energy storage is urgently needed as a priority to support the integration of that solar, while the wider Southeast Asian region has seen significant growth in interest in energy storage resulting from a number of different drivers.

Nam Viet invests and co-invests into renewable energy projects, carries out EPC duties from design and supply of equipment to full construction, as well as operations and maintenance (O&M) for commissioned assets.

Bitech will select projects for the pair to work on. Nam Viet Green Energy would then – subject to its due diligence process and ability to executive definitive agreements with prospective target companies – seek to facilitate capital investment. That could be for equity investments or acquisitions, according to a release.

The US company has a slightly curious backstory. It was only founded in 2021 under a different name reflecting an interest in cryptocurrency mining. Following acquisition by a publicly-listed medical service and tech company called Spine Injury Solutions, the company was renamed Bitech Technologies, got its NASDAQ listing as it subsequently pivoted into clean energy solutions.

Its strategy now is to acquire or license promising technology solutions, in areas including vanadium flow batteries, thin-film solar PV and geothermal energy, as well as acquire or invest in BESS projects. The idea is, according to the company, to then apply its acquired technologies to projects and assets in its portfolio. It still retains an interest in bitcoin mining, too.

Investment from Nam Viet and Nam Viet’s chosen financing partners from Southeast Asia will occur during the 2023 financial year, and could be extended into 2024.

“Bitech’s focus in the United States renewable energy market and their commitment to expanding innovative green energy technologies and products, together with their US local regulatory understanding in the BESS business at the ground level makes them the ideal operating partner to help us forward our mission toward global expansion,” Nam Viet CEO Nguyen Tan Hung said.

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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