Ecogy Energy, a developer, financier and owner-operator, was selected through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) in 2021 by the New York Power Authority (NYPA), in partnership with Sustainable Westchester and Westchester County, to develop solar energy projects under the Westchester Community Solar Partnership (WCSP), along with two other developers. The WCSP broadly aims to power the economic growth of New York State by supplying Westchester County residents and municipalities with locally based, ideal land-use, and discounted electricity costs through community solar projects.

Ecogy is securing preliminary agreements with the first municipality in a series of upcoming projects and has obtained approvals for a Con Edison interconnection and incentives from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

Sustainable Westchester, a nonprofit consortium of Westchester County local governments, is the designated community solar acquisition provider for the WCSP and will collaborate with Ecogy to enroll local residents, with a focus on affordable housing communities and low-to-moderate income (LMI) individuals. By prioritizing these groups in the development plans, NYPA, Westchester County, Ecogy and Sustainable Westchester are making large strides toward supporting environmental justice and directing benefits to historically underserved and overlooked communities.

“Many homeowners are ineligible to install solar on their homes for a host of reasons, including that they may be renting a property, have too much shade, poor roof conditions or because of financial restrictions,” says Westchester County Executive George Latimer. “However, Community Solar is designed to be accessible for all communities and residents, bringing them financial rewards and environmental improvements. We are proud and excited to be partnering with N.Y.-based Ecogy and once again with Sustainable Westchester on an innovative cost and energy-saving initiative.”

Community Distributed Generation (CDG) projects help governments and schools support renewable energy developments that benefit their communities and dismantle the inequitable distribution of renewable energy that can occur, redirecting the benefits to those who may not have the space, time, financial resources, or development experience to logistically support their own solar PV system. The WCSP will enable surrounding communities to access clean energy with a simple subscription process, no cost to sign up, no cancellation fees, and a guaranteed discount for subscribers of up to 10% on earned solar credits while offering site lease payments to those municipalities hosting the solar arrays.

The massive shift to clean energy for New York requires exactly the kind of public-private-nonprofit partnership that this project represents. Such collaborations help educate residents about the benefits of community solar, subscribe to community solar projects, and earn long-term savings from renewable energy.

“NYPA and Westchester County are actively pursuing innovative and inclusive renewable energy solutions for municipalities and communities that want to provide energy savings to their constituents,” states Justin E. Driscoll, NYPA’s interim president and CEO. “Prioritizing the underserved is a key project element we focus on as part of our role in helping to realize the state’s bold clean energy transition. Community partnerships will serve as a blueprint for renewable energy development for years to come and we are hopeful that our best-in-class examples here in New York State will serve to inspire the rest of the nation.”

“We are proud to partner with Westchester County and the New York Power Authority to bring the benefits of solar hosting to Sustainable Westchester’s municipal members and the County’s school districts,” states Nina Orville, executive director of Sustainable Westchester. “Sustainable Westchester is committed to helping Westchester County achieve New York State’s nation-leading climate and equity targets. This partnership will accelerate our achieving those goals, while building on our other successful solar initiatives.”

To finance the project, Ecogy intends to utilize N.Y.’s Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) and the NYSERDA NY-Sun Incentive Program, a state initiative offering cash incentives and/or financing for the deployment of qualified solar projects to drive growth in the solar industry. The program is helping New York State advance its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) implementation targets of 10,000 MW of distributed solar PV and 70% renewable energy by 2030.

Ecogy is building upon its history of leadership in Westchester County, which includes the first community solar projects in Yorktown, Croton-on-Hudson and Ossining, and the largest solar canopy system in Westchester County with the Maryknoll Society. Sustainable Westchester worked with Ecogy to enroll community members in the Maryknoll Community Solar farm.

“Ecogy is proud to create rooftop community solar solutions for our fellow New Yorkers and continue to open doors for traditionally underserved communities upon which Ecogy has focused for the last 12 years,” states Jack Bertuzzi, Ecogy’s principal. “None of this would have been  possible without the leadership of the New York Power Authority and Sustainable Westchester, who have been consistently innovative, have progressively supported initiatives that promote renewable energy, and prioritized equitable and just clean energy development.”

In coordination with the portfolio of projects, Ecogy plans to install their energy monitoring device, the Econode, which will allow every site to benchmark consumption to further drive efficiency through data-driven results and second-by-second analysis. All projects will have their data accessible, not only to municipalities and subscribers, but also to NYPA’s energy management platform, the New York Energy Manager (NYEM), helping to grow the data pool used to improve energy efficiency statewide.

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Greg Rizzo

Enel North America, an Enel Group subsidiary, has launched its retail energy business in select deregulated U.S. states, starting with Texas. The move enables commercial and industrial (C&I) organizations to purchase competitively priced renewable energy directly from Enel’s generation assets, allowing them to advance their net-zero and sustainability goals without having to make the long-term financial commitment of signing a power purchase agreement (PPA).

Enel is now ready to serve customers in Texas, where it has over 4 GW of renewable projects operational or under construction. The company plans to expand into other deregulated states including, but not limited to, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania in 2023.

“Our customers are increasingly seeking alternative ways to purchase renewable energy without having to take a long-term financial position in today’s increasingly volatile and uncertain market,” says Greg Rizzo, head of PPA and renewable energy solutions at Enel North America. “While we continue to be a market leader in PPAs, that structure may not be the best fit for every customer. The launch of Enel’s retail offering enables us to meet the needs of all our customers and support them through their entire decarbonization journey.”

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Ben Parton

Swell Energy has raised $120 million to further its virtual power plant (VPP) programs. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Greenbacker Development Opportunities Fund I LP with participation from an Ares Infrastructure Opportunities fund and Ontario Power Generation Pension Fund.

The funding will support Swell’s development of 600 MWh of VPPs through the deployment and aggregation of 26,000 energy storage systems located at homes and businesses across the United States. Swell VPPs provide a variety of grid service capabilities through projects in utility territories across Hawaii, California and New York.

Swell creates VPPs by linking utilities, customers and third-party service providers together, and by aggregating and co-optimizing distributed energy resources through Swell’s GridAmp software platform. In particular, working with utilities, Swell delivers value to its network of customers through bill savings, GridRevenue and energy security, creating a cohesive network of solar-powered batteries that supports overall grid reliability and stability, while potentially reducing grid operating costs.

“By coordinating distributed energy resources across the grid to intelligently meet fluctuating demand, Swell’s AI- and machine learning-driven platform helps address a major challenge of the energy transition, while also lowering customers’ bills,” says Ben Parton, director at SoftBank Group. “We are excited to support Swell’s team as they accelerate clean energy adoption.”

“Swell’s business model is an innovative application of existing technology directly solving two large issues plaguing the grid and renewable energy adoption: transmission and load shifting,” states Ben Baker, managing director and principal of Greenbacker Development Opportunities Fund. “We couldn’t be more pleased to partner with Swell, its impressive management team, and the existing investor base. The company’s three business verticals – Grid Services, Finance, Development – are mutually beneficial, and together will swiftly expand the proliferation of renewable resiliency, providing value to both customers and utilities.”

In addition to the project finance opportunities with current utility partnerships, Swell is also pursuing development in otherwise underserved markets where critical grid services are necessary to strengthen and modernize infrastructure. In regions where local grids must evolve to accommodate more renewable energy and electric vehicle adoption, Swell’s VPP programs can provide increased grid flexibility while precluding significant investment in new fossil fuel generation.

For these utilities, Swell increases the stock of dispatchable behind-the-meter assets, aggregates these assets for grid services participation, and dispatches distributed energy resources to create ongoing value for the grid, all while creating an improved experience for the customer. Swell analyzes and identifies each region’s distinct utility needs and grid stresses, then delivers the appropriate grid services through flexible energy storage solutions, helping with load management, renewable energy balancing and ancillary grid services.

“Swell is at the forefront of executing on the promise of virtual power plants, which we believe can be one of the most important and necessary advancements in smart grid service technologies available,” comments Keith Derman, partner and co-head of the Ares Infrastructure Opportunities strategy. “Ares has been working with Swell since its Series A raise in 2019, and we are excited to continue building upon that relationship with this follow-on investment.”

“Utilities and investors have understood the importance of virtual power plants for some time now; this funding further signals that the capital markets see tremendous value in this new asset class,” adds Suleman Khan, CEO of Swell Energy. “Virtual power plants are the key to a cleaner energy future at scale. Through the use of our GridAmp software, we are dedicated to enabling an accelerated transition to a carbon-neutral future compatible with the needs of both utilities and the communities they serve.”

This latest financing round brings Swell’s total equity capitalization to date to $152 million, including prior investments made by an Ares Infrastructure Opportunities fund, Aligned Climate Capital, Third Sphere and others. Citi acted as sole placement agent on this transaction.

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Crimson, a standalone 350MW/1,400MWh BESS Canadian Solar’s developer subsidiary Recurrent Energy brought online earlier this year in Riverside County, California. Image: Recurrent Energy.

CSI Solar, the system integration and manufacturing arm of Canadian Solar, has received an order for battery energy storage systems (BESS) from UBS Asset Management.

Vertically integrated solar PV company Canadian Solar made the announcement yesterday as it prepared to release its latest quarterly financials today.

The parent company said CSI Solar’s CSI Energy Storage division will supply “up to 2.6GWh” of battery storage systems for projects in North America for UBS Asset Management’s Real Estate and Private Markets business division.

Europe-headquartered UBS formed an Energy Storage Infrastructure team in 2021 to take on opportunities in the space. Earlier this year, the company bought 700MW of BESS projects in development in Texas’ ERCOT market, from Black Mountain Energy Storage (BMES), as reported by Energy-Storage.news in August.

Readers will be interested to hear that Canadian Solar’s North American project development subsidiary Recurrent Energy, also bought projects from the same developer in ERCOT totalling 100MW/400MWh across two sites, shortly before UBS Asset Management did.

After the sale to Recurrent, BMES claimed it had sold 1,200MW/1,700MWh of ERCOT projects with due online dates in 2024 within two months, having also sold 400MW/600MWh to Cypress Creek Renewables within that timeframe.

The projects for which CSI Solar will supply full end-to-end turnkey BESS solutions are due online in 2024 and 2025. Locations and further details of projects were not disclosed in a Canadian Solar press release, but the company did say their primary application will be in ancillary services markets to help maintain grid stability.

The systems supplied will be CSI Energy Storage Solbanks. The CSI Solar ESS division launched the Solbank in September this year, targeting utility-scale applications and with Canadian Solar announcing at the same time that CSI’s energy storage manufacturing will finish ramping up from 2.5GWh to 10GWh annual production capacity by the end of 2023.

UBS has followed other major asset managers into the energy storage space, such as Blackrock and Goldman Sachs, which have both made investments and acquisitions into the sector in diverse geographies, although their early emphasis appears to broadly favour the US and Australian markets.

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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Atlas Renewable Energy’s La Pimienta solar plant is fully operational. The plant, which is located in the state of Campeche, has a capacity of 300 MW, making it the second largest solar plant in Mexico. The plant will supply energy to CFE under a 15-year contract to support the power needs of the Yucatan peninsula.

“La Pimienta is an extraordinary project that will generate an echo in other companies; investors know that all companies that come in good faith and are committed to the environment are welcome,” says Secretary of Government Aníbal Ostoa Ortega, who represented the governor of the State of Campeche, Layda Sansores.

“Our governments’ commitment to clean energy and energy transition pays off for the benefit of our nations and the planet,” states Dorothy Ngutter, U.S. Consul General in Merida, who was representing Ken Salazar, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico.

La Pimienta is composed of more than a million solar panels, which are spread across 651 hectares. The solar plant will generate about 789 GWh annually. La Pimienta represents the first large-scale solar renewable energy investment in Campeche, with the participation of high-caliber institutions including the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras), MUFG Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. (SMBC), and Société Générale.

“We are very proud that our largest project to date is now fully operational,” comments Camilo Serrano, general manager for Atlas Renewable Energy in México. “This project is very special for us, as we are able to supply clean energy to the Yucatan Peninsula and avoid the emission of more than 1.7 million tons of CO2. In addition, we are able to promote unique social and environmental programs that will contribute to the well-being of the surrounding communities and the preservation of the local ecosystem.”

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Aerial view of Harmony Energy’s Pillswood project in northern England, UK. Image: Harmony Energy.

UK clean energy developer Harmony Energy has brought online a 98MW/196MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project.

The site, located in Hull, northern England, uses a Tesla two-hour Megapack system. It was originally planned to go online over two phases in December 2022 and March 2023, the plans however, were accelerated in an effort to support National Grid in providing stability to the UK’s power supply.

Peter Kavanagh, director at Harmony Energy has called the project “the largest of its kind in Europe by energy capacity”.

Autobidder, Tesla’s algorithmic trading platform, will operate the project after continued success managing Harmony’s two existing battery storage projects, Hole Bay and Contego, over the past two years, which were both developed in conjunction with FRV.

To read the full version of this story, visit Solar Power Portal.

Solar Power Portal’s publisher Solar Media will host the 8th annual Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 22-23 February 2023. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place. Visit the official site for more info.

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An energy storage system from UK-based Connected Energy, made using repurposed Renault EV batteries. Image: Connected Energy.

Could we start seeing ‘third life’ or even ‘fourth life’ energy storage, with EV batteries deployed in multiple different systems in their lifetime?

McKinsey expects some 227GWh of used EV batteries to become available by 2030, a figure which would exceed the anticipated demand for lithium-ion battery energy storage systems (BESS) that year. There is huge potential to repurpose these into BESS units and a handful of companies in Europe and the US are active in designing and deploying such ‘second life’ systems.

Companies in the space are already saying that thanks to the variety of uses cases of a BESS it is possible to start planning for ‘third life’ systems, as Ralph Groen chief commercial officer of Norway-based Evyon, one such company which raised €8 million (US$8.21 million) in a Pre-Series A last week, explained.

“You can use it at its full state of health for e-mobility. Once it’s degraded you could use it for stationary energy storage and squeeze more cycles out of it. Then when it’s, say, below 70% capacity, you could use it for example for backup power generation/supply,” he said.

Edward Chiang, CEO of Canada-based Moment Energy, agrees that some current uses of second life systems could be better served by third life ones: “We’ve had big customers ask us to deploy our systems for backup power but we think that’s not the best use of the batteries since there’s so much life left in them and they’re just going to sit there and discharge maybe once a year. Third life batteries could make the most sense for that application.”

This is partially helped by batteries not degrading as fast from use in EVs as previously thought, according to BatteryLoop, which is headquartered in Sweden and part of large recycling firm Stena. Second life applications also tend to age the battery less than being in an EV.

CEO Rasmus Bergström said: “People are coming to the realisation that the NMC batteries in the vehicles are performing better than expected. All the reports, be it Tesla or others, are showing that they have 90% capacity left when the battery is still 10 years old.”

“Right now the general belief is that a second life BESS has a 10-year lifetime but this could open that up. An ESS is tantamount to a spa treatment for the battery compared to being in a bus or in a consumer vehicle.”

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Invinity’s VS3 systems at Energy Superhub Oxford in the UK. Image: Invinity Energy Systems.

Invinity Energy Systems has sold 2.2MWh of vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) for use in Taiwan.

Taiwan-based industrial equipment wholesaler Bei Ying International Corporation will buy 10 of the Anglo-American flow battery company’s VS3 third-generation systems.

The Anglo-American flow battery company, listed on the AIM Exchange of the London Stock Exchange and the AQSE Growth Market, announced the sale yesterday.

The VRFBs will be resold to industrial customers in Taiwan (officially the Republic of China), marking Invinity’s entry into the market with the first battery due for delivery in December. Bei Ying is imminently expected to pay a deposit, the flow battery maker said.

The Taiwanese reseller is targeting growing opportunities in energy and electrification including renewable energy and electric vehicle (EV) equipment and infrastructure.

It is anticipated that the systems will be sold to industrial users for renewable energy and electric mobility integration applications, although the first system sold will be installed at an industrial technology research institute.

“The island is ideally positioned to take advantage of renewable power, made dispatchable by energy storage solutions, in pursuit of ambitious climate targets,” Invinity Energy Systems chief commercial officer Matt Harper said.

Taiwan’s government has set goals of 27GW of renewable energy generation by 2025 and 45GW by 2030 as it pursues its longer-term goal of net zero emissions by 2050.

At the same time the island is home to a lot of industry, including high-tech manufacturing, which requires good quality power.

That will likely require a significant amount of energy storage alongside renewable generators and new grid infrastructure or upgrades, with state-owned companies alone planning a spend of about US$32 billion on the technologies between now and 2030.

In May, Nelson Chang, chairman of Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC), a key supplier of cement and other products to mainland China, said that to achieve its goals, Taiwan will need to deploy energy storage equivalent to about 20% of renewable energy output.

That equates to about 5GW of energy storage by 2025 and 9GW by 2030, Chang said in during a presentation of financial results. TCC is the owner of Europe-headquartered battery storage system integrator NHOA, to which it has handed hundreds of megawatts of projects on the island.

The emerging market has to this point been largely driven by state grid company Taipower’s automatic frequency control (AFC) ancillary services tenders. Those have brought other international lithium-ion battery storage players like Fluence, Wärtsilä and Powin into the front-of-the-meter market segment.

Vanadium flow batteries offer long-duration energy storage (LDES) capabilities and can scale up to large energy capacities without requiring additional power electronics and other balance of plant equipment.

They are also perceived to be less risky from a fire safety perspective than lithium-ion and do not experience cell-level degradation even through high throughput usage over many years, with expected lifetimes of about 25 years, after which the most expensive component, vanadium electrolyte, can be recycled.

Invinity has contracted for systems in various global territories with recent project wins in California, US, and Alberta, Canada. In an interview earlier this year, Matt Harper told Energy-Storage.news about the dynamics of growing interest in flow batteries in key regions like the US and the UK and some of the company’s competitive strategies.

Singapore’s VFlow Tech has claimed to be the only vanadium flow battery manufacturer headquartered within the Southeast Asia region, targeting the microgrid, commercial and industrial (C&I) and utility-scale markets.

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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Kevin Butt

Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions is expanding its solar energy portfolio by acquiring the 100 MW Wildflower Solar project from Clearway Energy Group. Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions will own and operate the project.

The site, which is expected to begin full construction in late 2022 and achieve commercial operation in late 2023, is located in Desoto County, Miss. It will be the first Mississippi-based renewable energy project for Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions.

Toyota North America has signed a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement for up to 80 MW of the solar energy produced by the project. The agreement will financially settle on an as-generated basis tied to the project’s real-time energy output.

Wildflower Solar, which is located in proximity to Toyota’s manufacturing facility in Mississippi, will help the automotive manufacturer replace the high emission electricity used in its operations with zero emissions renewable electricity on the grid. The move represents another major step towards Toyota’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality in its operations by 2035.

“We’re excited to continue to expand our commercial solar portfolio and enter into the Mississippi market, which will build upon the area’s clean energy resources,” says Chris Fallon, president of Duke Energy Sustainable Solutions. “Once complete, Wildflower Solar will further diversify Mississippi’s energy infrastructure, while also reducing Toyota’s emissions from its North American operations.”

”Our collective future depends on clean mobility, clean air, clean water and biodiversity,” states Kevin Butt, director of sustainability for Toyota Motor North America.  “Renewable energy sources, like solar, are a key to achieving our goal of carbon neutrality and our purchase from Wildflower alone has the potential to reduce Toyota’s carbon footprint in North America by as much as 8 percent.”

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Dr. Shawn Qu

UBS Asset Management‘s Real Estate & Private Markets business in North America has chosen Canadian Solar Inc.‘s CSI Energy Storage, which is part of its majority-owned subsidiary CSI Solar Co. Ltd., to provide up to 2.6 GWh of battery solutions for the build-out of energy storage projects.

The battery solutions provided by CSI Energy Storage are central to UBS Asset Management’s energy storage investment strategy and part of the strategic expansion of its infrastructure business in the U.S. The multi-year agreement will support the ongoing expansion of its energy storage projects pipeline in North America. The projects are scheduled to reach commercial operation in 2024 and 2025.

“Batteries with utility-scale application are a critical component for the energy transition,” says Mark Saunders, co-head of energy storage infrastructure at UBS Asset Management. “We’re pleased to be able to partner with a best-in-class provider to enable us to rapidly scale up our energy storage solutions and look forward to working alongside CSI Energy Storage to deliver benefits to all of our stakeholders.”

The energy storage projects covered in the agreement will utilize CSI Energy Storage’s SolBank, a proprietary battery energy storage solution designed and manufactured for utility-scale applications. CSI Energy Storage will also provide full commissioning and integration services for the projects, in addition to long-term operations and maintenance, warranties and performance guarantees.

“We are pleased to support UBS in the execution of their large energy storage pipeline throughout North America,” states Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar. “Our proprietary battery storage product SolBank offers best-in-market product safety and cost competitiveness and our agreement with UBS demonstrates our ability to attract top-tier investors and provide battery energy storage solutions at scale and on a timeline that our customers require. Energy storage is critical to the reliability of a rapidly decarbonizing electric grid, and we will continue to partner with customers like UBS to make a difference in the energy transition.”

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