Illustrative rendering of a multi-day, large-scale energy storage system using Form’s iron-air battery tech. Image: Form Energy.

Mateo Jaramillo, CEO of long-duration energy storage startup Form Energy responds to our questions on 2022 and the year ahead, in terms of markets, technologies, and more.

Form has been developing a battery chemistry based on iron and air that the company claims will offer up to 100 hours of low-cost energy storage designed and built using abundant, non-toxic materials.

That means – if the company’s work can pay off and create a mass production, commercial product from its advances in the lab – that several days of low wind or solar PV output will be less of an issue for utilities and grid operators.

A team from Form Energy aimed to prove this in a September blog for this site, applying the example of long-duration energy storage (LDES) such as Form’s battery together with grid modelling analysis, to California’s energy sector. Long-time readers might remember a similar blog on the role of LDES in grid reliability and resilience from Form Energy contributed to Energy-Storage.news following Texas’ Winter Storm Uri in 2021.

Jaramillo, formerly a part of the Tesla Energy team that launched its stationary battery energy storage system (BESS) business, talks below about some of the company’s milestones to date, the role of long-duration energy storage on the grid of the future, and how to unlock “billions of dollars in savings” for electric ratepayers while creating “tens of gigawatts of demand” for LDES.

What did 2022 mean for your energy storage business, and how did the year compare with 2021?

2022 was a productive and exciting year for Form Energy. In February, we announced a collaboration with Georgia Power, the largest electric subsidiary of Southern Company, to identify an optimal project application of up to 15MW/1,500MWh of energy storage systems to be located in the utility’s service area.

In October, we closed a US$450 million Series E financing round led by TPG’s global impact investing platform, TPG Rise.

We also led a year-long, robust nationwide selection process for the site of our first full-scale battery manufacturing plant. Our team started by identifying over 500 candidate locations across 16 states, narrowing the search to three locations. After evaluating several promising manufacturing site locations, we landed on a great site in Weirton, West Virginia. We made the announcement to locate in Weirton alongside West Virginia Governor Jim Justice in December. 

In 2021, we were primarily focused on continued rigorous R&D and testing of our 100-hour iron-air battery and were pleased to announce the chemistry in July of 2021. In 2022, we continued product engineering and validation, and began to lay the foundation to scale up our technology and prepare for manufacturing.

What were some of the biggest gains and steps forward made by the industry, including your company, during the last 12 months?

It is exciting to see that long-duration energy storage is starting to take hold in new markets.  For instance, in a first among states, California approved US$126 million in incentives to demonstrate new long-duration storage technologies.

Massachusetts came out with its 2022 Massachusetts Climate Bill, which recognises the potential of long-duration and other storage technologies to enable the state’s ambitious climate goals.

And most recently, New York State awarded US$16.6 million to five long-duration energy storage projects.

We are now active in each of those states and believe that the demonstrated leadership will result in very meaningful climate impact. And of course, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is a massive benefit for deployment of renewable energy technologies.

Form Energy announced its first manufacturing plant’s location in December. Image: Form Energy/Office of West Virginia Governor Jim Justice.

The industry faced some well-documented challenges during the year, with the highest profile being supply chain constraints. How have those challenges affected the industry and how should they be confronted?

We believe that to meet supply chain challenges and to run the grid reliably and affordably, we need new domestically manufactured energy storage technologies capable of cost-effectively storing electricity for multiple days, during extended periods of extreme weather, grid outages, or low renewable generation.

Form Energy was founded to address this need. The active components of our iron-air battery system are some of the safest, cheapest, and most abundant materials on the planet — low-cost iron, water, and air.

Which technology and industry trends would you recommend our readers keep a close eye on in 2023?

The electric grid now faces a challenge: how to manage the multi-day variability of renewable energy without sacrificing reliability or cost.

In fact, many battery technologies on the market can only provide, at most, four to six hours of energy storage at full rated power. We recommend keeping a close eye on the technologies that can solve for energy storage over multiple days, reliably and affordably.

What are the biggest priorities for your company, and for the wider industry, in 2023 and beyond?

We expect to start construction of our Weirton factory early this year and begin manufacturing iron-air battery systems for broad commercialisation starting in 2024. Ramping up for commercial manufacturing is our top priority in 2023.

Beyond 2023, our internal analytics, validated with utility partners, predict that over the next decade, achieving Form’s cost and performance targets will unlock tens of gigawatts of demand for multi-day storage in the US and accelerate the country’s trajectory towards a fully decarbonised and more reliable and resilient grid.

At such levels of deployment and scale, Form’s technology will catalyse billions of dollars in savings to American electricity consumers and help address energy access concerns. As our technology is deployed globally, we believe similar benefits will accrue.

But there are challenges that must be addressed in order to realise the full market potential in the U.S. 

For instance, grid modeling is a key area that needs to adapt to the evolving mix of resources we will see coming on to the grid in the next decade. Regulators and grid operators need new tools that compensate for the full value stack of resources, such as Form’s 100-hour battery, that can provide reliability, resiliency, decarbonisation, address constraints on the transmission and distribution system, serve as hedge in tight power markets, and provide other agility like microgriding.

Existing markets were designed with entirely different resources and a largely combustion-driven grid in mind. Grid planners need new modeling tools that identify the investments necessary to maintain reliability across the hour to hour, day to day, week to week, season to season, and year to year variability that characterises high renewables grids.

We developed (our solution) Formware with this need in mind. While incumbent grid planning tools recommend investments based on modeling of tiny snippets of “typical” weather conditions, taking for example one day or one week per quarter of average weather, Formware is a state-of-the-art grid planning tool that recommends cost-minimising infrastructure investments and operations based on the full diversity of weather and grid conditions that grid operators face in reality.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 5th Energy Storage Summit USA, 28-29 March 2023 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.

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A Caban Systems-managed cellphone tower in the Dominican Republic. Image: Caban Systems via Twitter.

Caban Systems, a US battery storage tech company offering renewable energy solutions to telecoms and other critical infrastructure industries, has raised US$51 million to fuel its global expansion plans.

The company offers end-to-end turnkey energy solutions including proprietary lithium-ion battery storage technology and integrated energy-as-a-service contracts, combining the battery tech with its own remote monitoring software.

To date, it is actively managing power at more than 500 sites in 10 countries, including working with major telecommunications and cellphone companies across Latin America.

Caban Systems announced the close of its Series B funding round on 4 January, which CEO and founder Alexandra Rausch Castillo said would allow the company to “grow our business globally,” following up its launch into Latin America.

“Caban’s seamless hardware-plus-software ecosystem underpins our value as a next-generation energy company,” Rausch Castillo told Energy-Storage.news.

The company’s proprietary AI-enabled energy management software platform, called Continuo, “supports decarbonisation by providing real-time system monitoring and peak-usage analysis. This allows users to optimise performance, reducing energy consumption which in turn reduces carbon emissions and operating expenses,” the CEO said.

Continuo combines with Caban’s main proprietary battery technology, the Caban PowerPack 2.0 which comes with lithium-ion batteries and edge controller, designed, manufactured and stress-tested at the company’s US facilities ahead of deployment.

The systems provide not only high energy density, but also intelligent controls that enable seamless switching to backup, the company claimed, and the batteries are compatible either with Caban’s own cabinets or with cabinets from third parties.

The Series B was led by venture capital (VC) and private equity investment group BCP Ventures, with other participants including institution investor Ontario Power Generation Pension Fund, private equity firms Portfolia, Ember Infrastructure and another VC, Inspiration Ventures.

BCP Ventures co-founder and general partner Roger Lang said Caban’s offerings could “reinvent energy delivery for the telecommunications sector and bring renewable power to critical infrastructure in all corners of the world,” highlighting a “rapid growth trajectory and positive climate and human impact”.

Caban Systems said that in addition to its global expansion play, the funding will also go towards growing its domestic battery manufacturing capacity and expanding its suite of products and services. The company hinted that as a US-based manufacturer, it stands in line to benefit from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) incentives for domestic manufacturing, which are already transforming the race to build battery manufacturing capabilities in the country and beyond.  

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 5th Energy Storage Summit USA, 28-29 March 2023 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.

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Ceremony marking the start of construction of a Greenko plant in Andhra Pradesh, India, last year. The state’s Chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy can be seen pouring out the first concrete. Image: CMO Andhra Pradesh via Twitter.

Greenko, an Indian power producer creating a 24/7 renewable energy proposition backed with energy storage, has announced a planned US$1.2 billion pumped hydro project.

The company is already developing pumped hydro energy storage (PHES) plants around India, using them as a cornerstone of what it claimed is the country’s first “dispatchable renewable energy” business model, together with multiple gigawatts of solar PV and wind.

Greenko said yesterday that its newest project in development is a PHES plant in the Neemuch District of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh with storage capacity of 11GWh.

The company said it expects the project to require about IR100 billion (US$1.224 billion). Greenko already has a combined portfolio of PV and wind in Madhya Pradesh totalling around 500MW, it said.

India is gradually opening up as a market for lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) and expected to offer considerable opportunities for that technology, PHES is considered a relatively low-cost answer for long-duration energy storage (LDES) applications – if suitable sites can be found.

For example, Greenko won a 2018 tender with a pumped hydro and renewable energy project proposal that was considered the lowest cost renewables-plus-storage solicitation in the world. More recently, in December 2022, the company won a technology agnostic tender hosted by Indian state-owned power company NTPC’s renewable energy arm, with a PHES project bid offering a cost of storage as low as US$29/MWh if cycled more than once per day, or US$58/MWh for applications requiring one daily cycle.

Of the new project in Madhya Pradesh, Greenko said it will be charged with energy during off-peak times using abundant renewable generation and discharged to help mitigate peak demand and smooth the integration of wind and solar.

It will also help the state to meet its energy policy goals, its Renewable Power Obligation (RPO) and Energy Storage Obligation (ESO).

Greenko meanwhile, which also offers 24/7 renewable energy power purchase agreements (PPAs) to large corporates such as metals company ArcellorMittal, wants to reach 50GWh of energy storage capacity onboarded to its “Energy Storage Cloud Platform” by 2025, and then to 100GWh by 2027, as well as building 10GW of green hydrogen production capacity by 2030.

The Madhya Pradesh is anticipated for completion by December 2024 and will be connected to India’s interstate high-voltage transmission system, the ISTS.

“The project of this scale has been possible due to policy support at national level and astuteleadership and guidance of Honorable Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri. Shivraj Singh Chouhan ji,” Greenko CEO and MD Anil Chalamalasetty said.

“Madhya Pradesh’s favourable topography and resources along with world class infrastructurewill help us build this project in a cost-effective and timely manner.”

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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Chris Diaz

Seminole Financial Services, a provider of debt and tax credit equity financing for renewable energy transactions, in partnership with Blackstone Credit, has closed a $104 million debt facility providing financing for the construction of a 55+ MW Rhode Island solar project.

This transaction represents the 16th project Seminole has financed for this developer, Revity Energy LLC and its affiliates. With a focus on debt offerings exceeding $2 million, Seminole has financed renewable energy projects associated with numerous municipalities, utilities and school districts, as well as large corporates such as Walmart, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Safeway and Anheuser-Busch in more than 30 states.

“Our collaboration with two best-in-class organizations – Blackstone Credit and Revity Energy LLC – gives Seminole a strategic advantage and bolsters our position in the marketplace,” states Chris Diaz, co-CEO of Seminole. “We are honored to work alongside such amazing talent to make an even greater impact in the renewable energy space and the community as a whole.”

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JinkoSolar Holding Co. Ltd., a solar module manufacturer, has unveiled its Second Generation Tiger Neo panel family. The upgraded Tiger Neo family includes three series with up to 445 Wp for 54-cell, 615 Wp for 72-cell, and 635 Wp for 78-cell and module efficiency up to 22.27%, 23.23% and 22.72% respectively.

This generation of Tiger Neo panels are available with up to 23.23% efficiency at the module level, and 615Wp power output for the 72-cell panel in 182″ format. With up to an 85% bifacial factor, it can push a higher generation on the rear side panel and allow for 15-20% more yield compared to conventional bifacial panels. The further optimized temperature co-efficiency is down to -0.29%/℃.

“We are once again raising the standard of N-type performance with the latest generation of our Tiger Neo panels, which deliver better system performance – even through the most demanding conditions,” says Gener Miao, CMO of JinkoSolar Co. Ltd. “This panel, combined with an industry-leading N-type partner ecosystem and new solutions like ESS, will show what’s truly possible with the solar PV experience going forward.”

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SolarEdge Technologies Inc. and Sunnova Energy International Inc., a U.S. Energy as a Service (EaaS) provider, have expanded their long-standing partnership with the addition of the SolarEdge Home Battery to the Sunnova EaaS portfolio. The expansion of the partnership will enable Sunnova’s network of dealers to offer the SolarEdge Home Battery.

The SolarEdge Home Battery’s highly efficient DC-coupled design requires just one power conversion when consuming PV stored energy, compared to three with AC-coupled batteries. This can add up to 10 days of saved energy for every year of use when compared to a typical 10 kW PV system in self consumption mode. In addition, the SolarEdge Home Battery provides continuous power, enabling consumers to power more and larger devices, such as washing machines and HVACs, for longer periods of time.

“Homeowners’ energy demands are increasing at a time when utility bills are skyrocketing and grid instability is becoming more frequent,” says William J. (John) Berger, founder and CEO of Sunnova. “The addition of the SolarEdge Home Battery to our Energy as a Service offering marks an important next step forward in our mission to deliver highly robust, industry-leading solutions that meet homeowner demand to live in a more energy-efficient and energy-independent way.”

“Sunnova’s extensive network of dealers now have access to our highly efficient, high-power DC battery that will enable homeowners to take even greater control of their energy usage and power more of their lives with clean, renewable solar energy,” comments Zvi Lando, CEO of SolarEdge Technologies. “We look forward to building on our successful relationship with Sunnova to help unlock the full potential of solar power for additional homeowners across the U.S.”

Each SolarEdge Home Battery provides 9.7 kWh of backup capacity and up to nine batteries (three per inverter) can be stacked on a single backup system, for up to 87.3 kWh of backup capacity and 30 kW of continuous power. The battery is compliant with the UL9540A advanced safety standard. It is also designed to meet installer demand for a residential solution that is fast and cost effective to install. Accessible cable management and wireless communication speed up installation and decrease commissioning times.

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Sitetracker, a deployment operations management software for critical infrastructure providers, has implemented its Quickstart for residential solar companies. This process gets residential solar companies implemented with Sitetracker’s set of workflows in just a matter of weeks so they can realize operational efficiencies sooner and deploy assets faster.

Sitetracker enables critical energy infrastructure companies to manage their large-scale deployments and solve issues like program funding, asset management and field resources. Now, with Sitetracker’s residential solar Quickstart, these companies can implement the software quickly and easily so they can realize benefits including reduced project turnaround time through streamlined site discovery, deployment and ongoing maintenance.

“Amplified by unprecedented demand, residential solar providers are facing a slew of challenges like skilled labor shortages, permitting, and overall installation cycle times, so they need a powerful tool that they can implement quickly and that gives them the best-of-the-best when it comes to process, intelligence, and strategy of deployment operations,” says Parjanya Rijal, Sitetracker’s head of energy products. “The new Residential Solar Quickstart gets them up and running quickly, so they can deploy solar at the speed and scale that today’s rapidly growing market requires.”

Sitetracker’s Quickstart for residential solar comes in three versions: standard, plus and advanced. Sitetracker’s Quickstart solutions for residential solar, EV charging and Sitetracker Telecom help accelerate the deployment of critical infrastructure. Sitetracker plans to continue expanding the Quickstart library in 2023.

“Helping companies deploy critical infrastructure as efficiently as possible is our mission, and we’re innovating at every step based on real-time customer feedback in this dynamic time,” continues Rijal. “The more we can speed the deployment of critical infrastructure, the faster the planet will benefit from us achieving our ambitious energy goals.”

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One of Standard Solar’s community solar projects in Minnesota

Standard Solar is expanding its community solar portfolio in Rhode Island with the acquisition of a 4.9 MW project from Freepoint Solar LLC. The Woodville ground-mounted community solar project in Richmond, R.I., was developed by Freepoint Solar. Standard Solar will be the project’s long-term owner and operator. The community solar project, part of Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Growth Program, will allow customers in the state to benefit from clean energy savings by offsetting their electricity bills with solar energy.

“Providing much-needed relief from rising energy costs to customers is critical to furthering the clean energy economy, and collaborating with partners like Freepoint Solar brings us a step closer to that goal,” says Harry Benson, director of business development for Standard Solar. “This project, which will serve hundreds in the community, plays a significant part in transitioning Rhode Island into a 100 percent renewable energy state and will help reach its goal of being the first state in the nation to do this by 2030.”

“Freepoint Solar is pleased to have teamed with Standard Solar on the Woodville Project and continues to look for opportunities in New England to support the region’s transition toward a renewable future,” comments Peter Ford, managing director of Freepoint Solar. The array is expected to produce 7,700 MWh of clean energy annually. The project is anticipated to be completed in the summer of 2023.

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Chris Loehr

Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE) has closed approximately $260 million in construction financing and secured tax equity commitments for its Chaparral Springs Solar + BESS Facility located in Kern County, Calif.

Wells Fargo served as the administrative, green structuring agent and coordinating lead arranger on the construction financing, and MUFG and Silicon Valley Bank served as joint lead arrangers. The debt was issued under the Green Loan Principles, which aim to facilitate and support environmentally sustainable economic activity. Additionally, J.P. Morgan provided approximately $29 million of tax equity investment and committed to investing an additional approximately $114 million once the project is operational, which is expected to occur in September 2023.

The Chaparral Springs Solar + BESS Facility is currently under construction and, when completed, will provide 174 MW of renewable energy to two not-for-profit, community-owned electricity providers, Peninsula Clean Energy and Valley Clean Energy, through two 15-year power purchase agreements. Chaparral Springs will also deliver electricity to the two providers from its 88 MW, 352 MWh battery storage system, which will further improve the resiliency of the region’s clean power grid.

The financing for the Chaparral Springs Solar + BESS facility is an extension of LRE’s previously announced financing for its Rabbitbrush solar and storage project, also in Kern County, and further expands the company’s generation capacity in the county and its growing portfolio of three integrated solar-plus-storage facilities.

“We are pleased to close financing on our Chaparral Springs project and our continuing expansion of our relationship with each of these leading financial institutions as we grow our solar-plus-storage presence in California,” says Chris Loehr, senior vice president of finance. “This milestone follows the successful development and operation of our Rabbitbrush Solar project, which is adjacent to Chaparral Springs, and further demonstrates our commitment to excellence and ability to deliver on our pipeline of contracted projects. We value the continued support from our financial partners as we continue to drive our sustainability mission in all we do.”

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The Nest Cam with floodlight, one of Google Nest’s products. Image: Google Nest.

Google’s smart home division has joined a group of companies including Ford, Sunpower and Sunrun in founding a new partnership centred around scaling the market for virtual power plants (VPP).

The companies announced the launch of the Virtual Power Plant Partnership (VP3), led by RMI, a non-profit focused on accelerating the energy transition globally.

Founding members include automotive OEMs Ford and General Motors, smart home solutions providers Google Nest, OhmConnect and SPAN, and distributed energy resources (DERs) platform and VPP solution companies Olivine, SunPower, Sunrun, SwitchDin, and Virtual Peaker.

VP3 will, in its own words, “…work to catalyse industry and transform policy to support scaling VPPs in ways that help advance affordable, reliable electric sector decarbonisation by overcoming barriers to VPP market growth”.

It said that VPPs can leverage EVs, smart thermostats and appliances, batteries, solar PV arrays and additional energy assets to support the grid.

RMI CEO Jon Creyts said: “Our analysis shows that VPPs can reduce peak power demand and improve grid resilience in a world of increasingly extreme climate events. A growing VPP market also means revenue opportunities for hardware, software, and energy-service companies in the buildings and automotive industries. For large energy users, VPPs can significantly reduce energy spend while providing new revenue streams.”

The new organisation will work to:

Catalog, research, and communicate VPP benefits

Develop industry-wide best practices, standards, and roadmaps

Inform and shape policy development

Find out more about VP3 here.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 5th Energy Storage Summit USA, 28-29 March 2023 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.

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