Investors PASH and ERIH target solar and 40MWh of battery storage projects in Paraguay

The capital of Paraguay, Asuncion. The country has not announced any grid-scale energy storage projects to-date. Image: CC / Mariano Mantel.

Investment firms PASH Global and ERIH Holdings have formed a joint venture (JV) to develop utility-scale solar and battery storage projects in Paraguay.

A spokesperson for UK-based PASH told Energy-Storage.news that the partnership would initially target 100MW of solar PV and 40MWh of separate, standalone battery storage projects in a first phase of investment.

A second phase could see that rise to a 200MW of PV and 70MWh of battery storage, they added.

The companies announced the first project would start production in 2024 while the remainder would be deployed between 2024 and 2025.

“We are pleased to partner with PASH and see significant opportunities for our JV to expand our solar and energy storage footprint. I am confident that this will pave the way to more opportunities in the LATAM renewables and storage market,” said ERIH CEO, Akin Gunduz.

Like most of Latin America, the grid-scale battery storage market in Paraguay is at a relatively early stage. However, recent moves by the government show that may be about to change.

In early 2021, the country’s grid operator and utility ANDE (Administración Nacional de Electricidad) announced plans to install a swathe of new solar-plus-storage facilities.

Detailed in a ‘Generation Master Plan 2021-2040’, seven of the projects paired PV with 2.5MWh of battery storage while three larger projects for 2024/25 were suggested with a capacity of 44MWh. See ANDE’s document (in Spanish) here.

In December 2021, executives from ANDE and Itaipu, which runs the third-largest run-of-river hydroelectric power plant in the world at 14GW, visited a Tesla battery storage site in California. The delegation announced they were considering using battery storage at the Itaipu plant as well as more widely in Paraguay.

PASH Global is headquartered in London, UK, while ERIH is based in Ankara, Turkey.

See more Energy-Storage.news coverage of the energy storage market in Latin America here.

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Queensland transmission line upgrade to enable battery and renewables manufacturing ambitions

Queensland’s premier Annastacia Palaszczuk (shaking hands on right) meeting young apprentices at a site in Townsville earlier this week. Image: Annastacia Palaszczuk’s office via Twitter.

The Premier of Queensland today announced a major transmission line project to unlock 6GW of renewable energy, enabling the Australian state to realise its ambitions to create a homegrown clean energy value chain.

Called ‘Copperstring 2.0,’ early works on the A$5 billion (US$ 3.3 billion) project – of which A$500 million will come from coal royalties – will start this year, with construction planned for next year.

The transmission project is expected to be completed by 2029 and will connect the North West Minerals Province to the National Electricity Market.

Once the work is completed, the 1,100km high voltage transmission line will unlock Australia’s largest renewable energy zone (REZ), according to the local government, adding that it will connect vast renewable resources with critical minerals mining and processing which could be used to build batteries and renewables equipment including solar PV modules in North Queensland.

Annastacia Palaszczuk, Queensland Premier, said: “CopperString is the most significant investment in economic infrastructure in North Queensland in generations. Unlocking affordable renewable energy and our critical minerals will benefit Townsville, Mount Isa and every town in between – unlocking thousands of jobs and billions in investment.”

In a Tweet, Palaszczuk went one step further in calling it “Northern Australia’s largest economic development project. Ever,” aligned with the state’s Energy and Jobs Plan which commits the state to reaching 70% renewable energy by 2032.

To read more on Copperstring 2.0, visit PV Tech.

Initial focus on vanadium processing plant

The premier noted that the state government recently took advice from Bob Galyen, a US battery industry expert who several years ago played a role in Chinese manufacturer CATL’s rise to becoming the biggest lithium battery company in the world.

Galyen had said access to energy was the “single most important factor for investment in battery factories,” along with raw materials.

As regular readers of Energy-Storage.news will know, Queensland has many of those raw materials in abundance – more than AU$500 billion worth, according to Palaszczuk today – while the transmission project and REZ developments will support the other side of the equation.

The premier referred again to the state’s plan to create a vanadium processing facility, to make the electrolyte used in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), citing the technology’s potential importance in creating grid-scale storage capacity.

Australian battery metals and chemicals company Vecco will build the AU$26 million processing plant, in Townsville, with production commencing later this year and with an annual production capacity of 175MWh, ramping up to 350MWh.

At first the plant will be inputted with vanadium sourced by industrial waste by a local vanadium company, QEM, together with Sun Metals, but will be later fed by Vecco’s Queensland vanadium mine at Julia Creek.

The premier also referred to the iron electrolyte flow battery factory underway by ESI Asia-Pacific, using the flow battery technology developed by US company ESS Inc.

There will also be facilities to supply materials like cobalt and nickel for battery making, thought largely to be intended for the electric vehicle (EV) sector via off-taker GM, high purity alumina, and various green hydrogen initiatives. However, a report prepared for the state government a while back highlighted that its best strategic advantage is likely to be found in the vanadium and flow battery space.

In her speech, Palaszczuk referred to the US’ Inflation Reduction Act and the hundred of billions of dollars it will inject into that country’s clean energy sector and the start of the European Union’s Green Deal Industrial Plan, “to match support for clean energy manufacturing”.

“We are in the midst of a global clean energy arms race,” Annastacia Palaszczuk 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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Five things we learned at the Energy Storage Summit 2023

The keynote panel on Day 2 consider the role of energy storage for the UK’s energy security. Image: Gareth Davies / Solar Media

The Energy Storage Summit 2023, hosted by our publisher Solar Media in London last month, was attended by more than a thousand delegates and featured a veritable who’s-who of the sector.

Much of the event focused on the booming UK market – which according to speaker Quentin Draper-Scrimshire of market data group Modo Energy could double in size to 4GW during 2023 –, there were many international attendees, and sessions that embraced the European and global markets too.

You may already have seen some coverage of the event, not only here on Energy-Storage.news but also on our UK energy transition site Current±, recapping some of the best insights, opinions and occasional ‘hot takes’.

In this blog we’ll signpost some of our editorial team’s key takeaways from what was a record-breaking event fit for an industry stepping into the limelight of the global energy transition’s crucial next decades.  

UK market’s merchant structure resembles Texas’ ERCOT

One observation on the UK with international relevance is that the country’s battery storage market has undoubtedly come a long way in a short space of time, effectively starting with the 2016 enhanced frequency response (EFR) tender held by National Grid for 200MW of contracts.

Around 800MWh was deployed in 2022, a record amount, but aside from the impressive installation figures, what also makes the UK stand out is how it has evolved and become more sophisticated. From a big picture perspective, the role of energy storage in providing energy security is increasingly recognised, while from a market perspective, battery energy storage system (BESS) asset owners are able to ‘stack’ revenues by serving multiple applications.

This has enabled the market to move away from dependence on long-term contracted revenues towards business models built more around merchant revenues. Yann Brandt, COO of US-based system integrator FlexGen, told Energy-Storage.news that in many ways the UK resembles Texas’ ERCOT market, which is similarly based on merchant energy trading opportunities.

One key difference between the UK and the US, however, is that with roughly eight years of experience under their belts and the background of a deregulated energy market, UK battery storage optimisers – the route-to-market specialists that play assets into revenue-generating opportunities – are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Two of the main underlying reasons are the high level of competition that the market has fostered and the high level of transparency in the market. Information providers such as Modo Energy publish regular rankings and data of how assets, and asset optimisers are performing.   

We did hear, however, of some key differences between the US and UK markets that are a little bit of a barrier to entry from Danny Lu, executive VP at another system integrator, Powin Energy, but overall, there seems to be a lot of interest in the UK’s learnings from the market, not just from the US, but also from Europe and further afield.

By Andy Colthorpe, editor, Energy-Storage.news

Grid connectivity one of the biggest challenges facing the storage sector in the UK

Grid connectivity is increasingly becoming a concern for battery energy storage developers in the UK, with some companies facing over a decade-long wait to connect their assets.

“The UK battery energy storage market is ahead of most European markets in terms of what has already been installed, but it is running into challenges such as grid connectivity,” said Julian Jansen, senior director of Fluence, at the Summit.

In 2022, 800MW of battery energy storage was connected to the grid, bringing the overall size of the market – including assets at pre-planning, submitted, approved and operational stages – to 26.5GW.

This year, the sector is expected to grow substantially to 63.8GW overall, with the biggest area of growth being assets at pre-planning stage, which is expected to grow from 4.2GW to 21.8GW according to research from Solar Media.

However, if the grid connection process isn’t improved and made easier this growth of the sector could stall, ultimately threatening the transition of the electricity sector to net zero.

To help tackle this, National Grid recently announced the introduction of a new two-stage process for applying for a grid connection, as it looks to increase certainty for developers and tackle the long waiting times experienced by many.

As part of this update, storage will be viewed as neutral with regards to grid demand, allowing projects to be connected faster, and freeing up capacity for other projects. Additionally there will be an interim option for storage projects to connect to the network sooner, albeit with the caveat that they may be required to turn off more frequently than other generators and without initially being paid to do so.

Whilst the new connection process is a short-term measure, the fact that action is being taken represents a significant step towards tackling grid connection challenges.

Find out more about grid connections and how network operators as well as National Grid are expanding them in the UK by reading our Current± Explores: The Grid Connection Conundrum series here.

This section by Molly Lempriere, UK editor, Solar Media

There was a packed house across all three streams of content. Image: Gareth Davies / Solar Media

Supply chain issues are (still) another big challenge

Although it’s been usurped by ‘grid’ as the biggest talking point in the industry, supply chain is still at the forefront of stakeholders’ minds.

The key takeaway from discussions was that there are no easy fixes for the energy storage-specific challenges and that the battery storage supply chain, with a multitude of components and materials involved, is more complicated than for other elements of the renewable energy sector, and that the challenges therefore are unparalleled.

Lead times and raw material index (RMI) volatility problems appear to be nonetheless improving and investors and finance providers are becoming more comfortable with the technology, which helps with managing project delays.

Stronger relationships between suppliers and offtakers is key, speakers on a panel discussion about supply chain said.

By Cameron Murray, reporter, Energy-Storage.news

No Inflation Reduction Act-style intervention wanted by European developers

European battery storage developers Energy-Storage.news spoke to at the event said they did not expect or want the same level of government intervention from the EU as seen in the US’ Inflation Reduction Act.

The Act includes generous tax credits for both upstream battery component and material production and downstream energy storage system deployments.

Battery storage stakeholders in Europe are more focused on the need to create a level regulatory playing field for batteries to connect to the grid and play into electricity markets.

There is also a need for the investment community to familiarise itself with the technology class on the continent, in line with what has already happened in markets like the UK and the US.

By Cameron Murray

Long-duration energy storage a recurring theme that gets bigger each year

A quick and highly anecdotal observation here: for the past few years, long-duration energy storage (LDES) has been a talking point at the Energy Storage Summit.

However, there is a major difference in how LDES is being spoken about today than even just a couple of years ago. Previously, discussions on the stage would be almost entirely focused on lithium-ion battery storage, and then invariably someone – perhaps from a flow battery company – would ask a question from the audience about the need for LDES and when it would be integrated into market structures.

This time out, long-duration energy storage was being mentioned by speakers in almost every session that discussed the market and technologies over any sort of medium or longer-term timeframe.

Long-Duration Energy Storage Council executive director Julia Souder presented what the organisation has found could be a US$4 trillion global opportunity, if we looked at LDES across the power and heat sectors.

What hasn’t yet changed are market rules and frameworks, to enable LDES to fully take part. But as subsequent discussions during a dedicated LDES stream showed throughout the second day of the Summit, there is a broad range of stakeholders from policymakers to developers and investors, that recognise we will need a diverse range of energy storage technologies, with varying storage durations, if we are to achieve anything close to decarbonisation while maintaining stability and reliability of energy networks.

By Andy Colthorpe

Read more of our coverage from the Energy Storage Summit 2023.

For more information and to register for next year’s 9th edition of the Summit, taking place 21, 22 February 2024 in London, visit the official website.

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Gigawatts of energy storage projects approved in Greece ahead of auction

The Energy Regulatory Authority has been approving numerous energy storage projects recently. Image: Energy Regulatory Authority headquarters, credit: Energy Regulatory Authority.

Swathes of energy storage projects including battery storage and pumped hydro have been approved by the regulator in Greece, as the country prepares for a big battery storage auction.

The government in Greece is looking to provide financial support for up to 900MW of energy storage capacity through a tender as previously reported by Energy-Storage.news. The country has an overall energy storage deployment goal of 3GW by 2030 to facilitate a 70% renewable energy target.

The standalone energy storage procurement process is set to launch during the third quarter of this year, Naim El Chami, senior analyst at consultancy Clean Horizon told Energy-Storage.news, with systems to be completed by end-2025.

(The consultancy did a webinar with this site in late November about why Greece was developing into an important market for energy storage.)

In the last fortnight alone, the Energy Regulatory Authority (RAE or Ρυθμιστική Αρχή Ενέργειας) has approved battery storage projects totalling around 586MW in power and 815MWh in energy storage capacity.

Although one of these projects exceeds the tender’s maximum size of 100MW so will not be going for the government support. The 293.89MW/300MWh system in Peloponnese is being developed by infrastructure group Ellaktor.

Also approved by the regulator, although unlikely to be going for the auction process, is an 8.6-hour, 680MW/5,872 MWh pumped hydro energy storage project by Italy-based utility Terna. The project has been split into two separate applications of 220MW/1,872MWh and 460MW/4,000MWh.

Local outlets report that by the end of January alone, the regulator had approved permits for 36 energy storage plants with 2.5GW of combined power. 1GW of these were co-located with renewable energy plants and designed to only charge from that plant, which gives them a priority in the grid connection queue.

El Chami said that single bidders will not be able to get more than 25% of the standalone tender’s volume, i.e. 225MW.

“This scheme will ensure a two-tiered support: an annual 10-year operating support (on a contract for difference basis) and a one-off capex-based payment,” he added.

Investment funds from outside Greece have been looking to capitalise on the development of the country’s energy storage market.

In January, UK-headquartered investment management group NextEnergy Capital acquired six standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 400MW. Two months prior, Madrid-based Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) acquired a 600MW portfolio of BESS projects.

Gore Street Capital, which has a BESS portfolio spanning the UK, Ireland and the US told Energy-Storage.news in an interview last year that Greece was an ‘interesting market’.

Browse the RAE’s decisions archive here.

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Sweden battery storage market to grow 2-4x in 2023

A 70MW battery storage project being developed by Ingrid Capacity, set to be the largest in the country when online in H1 2024. Image: Ingrid Capacity.

Some 100-200MW of grid-scale battery storage could come online in Sweden this year, local developer Ingrid Capacity told Energy-Storage.news.

In an interview conducted at the Energy Storage Summit a fortnight ago, chief strategy officer (CSO) Nicklas Backer said there was around 70MW online by the end of last year, meaning the market could as much as quadruple in size this year.

The country’s balancing needs have historically been provided by its pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) capacity.

“But due to a number of factors including electrification of society you now have big problems, especially in the south of Sweden,” Backer said.

“A lot of the turbines for hydro in Sweden are old and are not built or optimised for some of the fast response services needed in today’s system. Overall the relative amount of hydro is decreasing too – the absolute amount is flat, maybe even falling slightly. Some small-scale hydro are getting stopped because of environmental permitting,” he added.

Finland-based system integrator Merus Power pointed to a similar driver for the battery storage market there during an interview also done at the two-day event in London, published last week.

Ingrid Capacity is a much newer company having been founded just last year. But it has already grown to have the “leading project pipeline within the Nordics as far as we know”, Bäcker said. The company was born from the idea that the “grid isn’t very smart,” as he explained.

“In the Nordics, you have a binary situation where you have DSOs (distribution system operators) that are more or less doing fine on capacity and then you have just one or two industrial users all of a sudden causing capacity constraints.”

“There are so few hours when there are problems so you don’t need more baseload in the system – maybe in 10 years, but for now you just need flexibility. Storage can do the fast balancing but also the long-term balancing stuff.”

Evolving the value stack for storage in Sweden

A big part of Bäcker’s role as CSO is to look at the long-term revenue picture for battery storage in Sweden, as he explained.

“The frequency markets are paying quite well right now though it is clearly a saturable market, and we have been looking at long-term profitable markets and how to help the Swedish market develop along those lines. Ancillary services prices have increased around 200% since 2020.”

“We have one site online and it does mostly ancillary services, along with some arbitrage. It’s a pilot size project so we’re experimenting, but if we optimised purely on price it would just do ancillary services. The prices on Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) will have to drop for arbitrage to become as profitable.”

“Long-term the revenue stack will move to arbitrage, capacity markets and optimisation for grid owners and industrial processes. The ancillary services market in Sweden is around 600MW for FCR-up and FCR-down, each.”

Ingrid is deploying a 70MW project in Karlshamn for the first half of 2024, which is set to be the largest in the country when it goes online, and a 20MW system in Vimmerby for which it has not given a commercial operation date.

The market in Sweden is picking up in pace as Energy-Storage.news recently wrote, with DSO Ellevio Group ordering 70MW of projects from Alfen announced at the start of 2023. Two of those, 15MW units totalling 30MW, are set to be completed as early as this Spring.

Ingrid Capacity mainly goes for LFP, 1C systems, and typically uses the biggest European system integrators for its projects which are taking about 12 months to get to the ready-to-build stage. The main bottleneck for now is batteries, Bäcker said.

“The market structure here is relatively fragmented so the projects are quite small for now, meaning we pay a bit more per MWh compared to UK for example,” he added.

The firm has projects over 100MW in size but Bäcker said they will be several years before being ready-to-build, mainly due to grid capacity constraints.

Nicklas Backer, chief strategy officer for Ingrid Capacity. Image: Ingrid Capacity.

Grid connectivity issues were a huge talking point at the Energy Storage Summit, as reported by our sister site Current± in its rolling coverage of the event’s second day. In some markets, like the Netherlands, huge grid fees for storage are holding the market back while in Sweden it’s a bit better.

“Grid fees as a percentage of opex are in the low single-digit figure range, but it’s complex and depends on where the storage asset is, Bäcker said.

Ingrid Capacity claims an overall energy storage project pipeline of 500MW in Sweden and a total target for the Nordics of 2GW. Its shareholders include property developer Engelbrekt Utveckling and investment firms Springbacka and Neptunia.

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Our Next Energy Chooses Site for Battery Storage System Manufacturing

Mujeeb Ijaz

Our Next Energy (ONE) has entered into an agreement with the State of West Virginia to locate its Aries Grid battery storage system manufacturing facility in Millwood, at the Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables microgrid business site.

ONE will use a 40,000 sq. ft. industrial building already located on the Ravenswood site to assemble Aries Grid, a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) utility-scale battery system that can serve as long-duration energy storage.

BHE Renewables had previously selected ONE as its partner for utility-scale battery storage at its microgrid business site.

“The BHE Renewables microgrid project, estimated at 420 MWh, in Jackson County represents a historic transition to renewable energy-based manufacturing in the U.S. and establishes a standard for others to follow,” says Mujeeb Ijaz, CEO and founder of ONE. “Building upon BHE Renewables’ commitment to this site and the State of West Virginia, ONE’s first Aries Grid factory will bring even more jobs and investment to this area to help clear a path to a carbon-free manufacturing future.”

ONE expects the manufacturing facility to be operational in 2025, with hiring to start next year.

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Pivot Energy Adds Credit Enhancement Product to Solar Portfolio

Bret Labadie

kWh Analytics has formed a partnership with Pivot Energy LLC to provide its Solar Revenue Put production insurance for multiple distributed solar projects totaling 70 MW across six states.

kWh Analytics says the Solar Revenue Put was added post-financial-close to improve leverage from lenders Silicon Valley Bank, Cadence Bank and Bank United.

Everest is the main carrier for the production coverage.

“Our partnership kWh Analytics will be a game-changer for our portfolio of community solar assets,” says Bret Labadie, CFO of Pivot Energy. “This insurance product reduces the risk of the portfolio, which enables stronger project returns and ultimately allows us to more effectively finance more clean energy projects in the future.”

The Solar Revenue Put is a credit enhancement product designed to help investors improve leverage by mitigating solar production risk. Although the financing closed in April 2022, the post-financing addition of the Solar Revenue Put for an extended 20-year term has enabled Pivot Energy to increase the loan size, helping to cover increased costs that would otherwise be covered by equity.

The Pivot Energy portfolio presented the kWh Analytics team with a new challenge: each of the 36 sites had a different configuration, a different tracking system and different associated risks. Utilizing the largest database of operating solar assets, the team assessed the risk at the individual project level as well as a diversified portfolio to underwrite the policy, finding the best value for the client and ultimately allowing for debt optimization for Pivot Energy.

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Generation Bridge Planning Solar Power for New York Brownfield Site

Dan Revers

Generation Bridge LLC, an owner of several electric power generation facilities in California, Connecticut and New York, is initiating a multi-year solar project in Oswego, N.Y., that will utilize land that currently contains several fuel oil storage tanks with a total capacity of nearly 130 million gallons.

The project, which is planned to total 25 MW by 2027, will be built at the South Oswego Terminal and developed by asset manager Eastern Generation LLC.

Generation Bridge and Eastern Generation are affiliates of ArcLight Capital Partners, a power infrastructure investor with an existing portfolio containing over 25 GW of installed generating capacity.

“ArcLight is proud to support Generation Bridge’s investment in Oswego and help New York meet its renewable energy goals by replacing fossil fuel infrastructure with clean energy generation,” says Dan Revers, managing partner at ArcLight. “We look forward to working with the State of New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation, and the local Oswego community to begin to transition the Oswego Harbor Power station away from fossil fuel by replacing inactive fuel oil storage tanks with clean, renewable solar power.”

Generation Bridge says the Oswego solar project is the first of several planned projects, which may ultimately include additional investments in solar, energy storage and other clean energy technologies both at the terminal and the main Oswego Harbor Power plant. 

“As the long-time operator of several power generation facilities in New York State as well as manager of thousands of megawatts of power generation across the Northeast, we are bringing considerable engineering and project management experience to these development projects,” says Mark Sudbey, CEO of Eastern Generation. “These investments in a brownfield site are made possible thanks to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and New York’s leadership in clean energy.”

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Solis Introduces New Solar PV Inverters

Solar inverter producer Solis Technologies has debuted the 100K-5G-PRO series, for higher powered commercial and industrial applications, and the 255kW-EHV three-phase inverter for large-area utility-scale systems.

The Solis 100K-5G-PRO inverter includes component and manufacturing upgrades that enable full compatibility with today’s high-power 182mm and 210mm PV modules, allowing for greater capacity and a lower levelized cost of energy from a smaller footprint. This comprehensive re-engineering of the PRO series has also helped overcome escalating supply-chain bottlenecks for a number of hard-to-source components, the company says.

“5G PRO has an increased power rating, of more than 600 W, greater current capacity, up to 18 A per string, and maximum power point tracking of eight, each with access to two groups of strings,” says Travis Snyder, product manager at Solis Europe.

The 255kW-EHV comes storage-ready and offers a large single power capacity (up to 1500 V and 255 kW) with high maximum power point tracking (up to 12). It can also accommodate 24 string inputs and support 500W+ high-power and bifacial solar panels.

“With an efficiency of up to 99 percent, our 255kW-EHV high-voltage string inverter is designed to maximize PV power plant yields in the new era of high-performance large-area solar systems, while significantly reducing the levelized cost of energy,” Snyder adds.

The 255kW-EHV inverter features an IP66 classification and a corrosion protection rating of C5. Its unique and efficient heat-dissipation design, combined with intelligent temperature control protection, can result in 5% to 7% higher outputs at extreme temperatures than the competition, the company claims.

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Louisiana Utility Seeking Approval on Pair of Solar Projects

Phillip May

Entergy Louisiana has filed a request with the Louisiana Public Service Commission to approve the purchase, construction and operation of nearly 225 MW of new solar power resources.

Entergy Louisiana has selected two projects to source additional solar energy, including one in Iberville Parish that would account for approximately 175 MW and another in Ouachita Parish (~49 MW). If approved by the commission, Entergy Louisiana will be able to increase its renewable portfolio and help meet the growing demand for clean generation.

“This is another step toward not only reaching our own sustainability goals, but also toward helping our customers reach their sustainability goals,” says Phillip May, Entergy Louisiana’s president and CEO. “The desire for clean power is increasing and, at Entergy, we intend to meet that desire in a way that balances our ability to continue providing reliable and affordable power. We’re excited about the potential addition of nearly 225 MW and look forward to further expanding our portfolio of renewables as demanded by our stakeholders.”

Under Entergy Louisiana’s proposal before the commission, the company would enter a 20-year purchase power agreement with Coastal Prairie Solar LLC, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, for energy produced by its solar facility to be built in Iberville Parish. Also, Entergy Louisiana would build and operate what would become the Sterlington Solar Facility in Ouachita Parish.

If approved, construction would tentatively begin in the spring of 2024, with the Iberville facility fully operational in late 2025. The Iberville facility would be followed by the Sterlington Solar Facility, which is expected to deliver power to the grid in early 2026.

The proposal also includes a request for authorization to include the new solar resources within the recently approved green tariff Geaux Green Option, or Rider GGO. This is a voluntary program that allows customers the opportunity to subscribe to, and get benefits from, renewable energy resources. Adding these resources to the Rider GGO resource portfolio will further assist Entergy Louisiana customers with meeting their environmental and sustainability goals.

Entergy Louisiana currently has approximately 280 MW of renewable resources, including the Capital Region Solar facility, which began delivering power to the grid in October 2020. The company has several thousand megawatts of renewable capacity in various stages of planning and procurement that will be brought to the commission for approval in the near future.

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