Myke Clark

Solar Alliance Energy Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Redball Energy for the provision of tax equity financing of up to $530,000 for the company’s initial portfolio of solar projects in New York.

The tax equity investment will be through a customary partnership-flip agreement, which is non-dilutive and structured at the individual project level, the company says. The MOU also outlines the intention of the parties to collaborate on future tax equity investments as Solar Alliance expands its portfolio of assets under ownership.

“Securing tax equity financing for our New York projects is a critical milestone,” says CEO Myke Clark. “Tax equity financing allows Solar Alliance to reduce the amount of sponsor equity required for these two projects and increases the return on investment. Combined with future project debt, the tax equity structure can be replicated as we target additional solar projects and seek to grow our portfolio of assets that will generate recurring revenue for Solar Alliance.”

Solar Alliance will own and operate two ground-mounted solar projects in New York:

US1: 389 kW located in the Village of Union Springs, Cayuga County

VC1: 298 kW located in the Village of Cazenovia, Madison County

Both projects are expected to achieve commercial operation in Q4 2022.

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ITRI Executive Vice President Alex Y.M. Peng (right) receiving TÜV certification from TÜV Rheinland’s Michael Kroeger (left).

ITRI has partnered with Taiwanese solar panel and cell manufacturer United Renewable Energy (URE) and San Fang Chemical Industry Co Ltd. to develop a solar module that is simple to fully disassemble at the end of its useful life and is 100% recyclable.

The module meets IEC international standards and received its first certification granted by TÜV Rheinland for high safety and reliability, the companies say. The module can be fully recycled, and the recovered materials – such as silicon and glass – can be reused, saving the decommissioned PV modules from being broken up or degraded.

ITRI’s R&D team estimates that the recycle value of retired PV modules could significantly rise, from roughly $18 million to $74 million per gigawatt, creating a new circular economy model for the solar industry.

The redesign of the module started with a new encapsulant and took into consideration the product life cycle of the backplane, cells and bracket of a PV module, the companies add.

The module has already been tested in Keelung Island, Penghu, and southern France. In addition to passing IEC 61215 and IEC 61730 tests and receiving TÜV Rheinland’s certification, the technology is expected to obtain Taiwan’s Voluntary Product Certification in the first quarter of 2023.

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An ENGIE Solar Project in Texas

ENGIE North America (ENGIE) has acquired a 6 GW portfolio of solar, paired and stand-alone battery storage development projects from Belltown Power U.S. The transaction includes 33 projects comprising some 2.7 GW of solar with 0.7 GW of paired storage and 2.6 GW of stand-alone battery storage. The projects are located across ERCOT, PJM, MISO and WECC1.

“These projects are a tremendous addition to our existing renewables pipeline and will help to further accelerate ENGIE’s role in the energy transition,” says Dave Carroll, chief renewables officer and head of ENGIE North America. “The mix of solar, paired and stand-alone storage across a wide set of geographies both complements our existing portfolio as well as provides opportunities for expansion into new areas in the United States. The 3.3 GW of battery storage projects will be a critical enabler of flexibility and supports the balance of the grid to improve its reliability and resilience.”

“We are very proud of having completed this transaction with ENGIE, which marks another great milestone in the journey of Belltown as a greenfield developer,” comments Hernan Farace, CEO of Belltown Power U.S. “The ENGIE team is very knowledgeable and has the breadth and depth of expertise to bring these projects into operations. We believe our projects are in excellent hands and look forward to the ribbon cutting ceremonies at each of these sites.”

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Corporate funding into energy storage companies: the first nine months of this year have already blown away the full-year totals for 2019, 2020 and 2021. Image: Solar Media, data from Mercom Capital reports.

More money was raised through corporate funding for energy storage companies in the first nine months of 2022 than in the entirety of last year, according to Mercom Capital.

The group’s latest quarterly report tracking corporate, VC funding and M&A activity in the sector – along with smart grid and energy efficiency companies – found that US$22 billion corporate funding went in from January to September from 92 deals.

This was against a total US$17 billion for 2021, while by the end of the same nine-month period last year, that stood at US$13 billion.

As of the half-year mark at the of June, Mercom had tracked US$15.8 billion corporate funding – including public market and debt financing, meaning that between July and September alone the sector had raised US$6.2 billion.

While booming corporate funding may well reflect a maturing market, conversely the amount of venture capital funding in the sector fell considerably year-on-year.

Mercom found that US$4 billion was invested by VCs in the nine months to September, 44% less than was invested in the same period of 2021. That said, there were a greater number of deals this time out, 73 deals versus 60 deals last year.

Top ranked corporate funding deals could swap around before end of year

Mercom ranked the top corporate funding recipients so far this year, and Eolian, an investor and owner-operator of US energy storage assets was top of its list, for the US$925 million funding it closed in April from financiers including Banco Santander, MUFG and Mizuho. The company is in the portfolio of sustainable infrastructure and impact investor Global Impact Partners.

Group 14, a materials company developing technologies for next generation lithium-silicon batteries came in second, with US$400 million raised in a Series C funding round. Investors included Porsche and OMERS Capital Markets.

Incidentally, the company was among recent awardees of grants from the US government to support the domestic battery value chain, with Group 14 getting a US$100 million commitment from the Biden-Harris Administration.

Third was Hydrostor, the Canadian advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) company which claims its proprietary technology has considerably higher round trip efficiency, and fewer heating-based emissions, than legacy compressed air plants.

Hydrostor raised a US$250 million conditional investment commitment from Goldman Sachs toward the beginning of this year. A few days ago, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) pledged to support the company’s planned 1.6GWh project in New South Wales with AU$45 million (US$28.42 million) funding.

Looking ahead, a couple of big deals have been announced since September which could make for interesting reading in the next edition.

Top of the pile is Form Energy, the iron-air battery startup aiming to commercialise a technology that it claims could provide days of low-cost energy storage using abundant and easily assembled materials.

Form raised US$450 million in a Series E funding round, as reported by Energy-Storage.news earlier this month, bringing the company’s total investment raised to date to US$800 million. Investors included ArcellorMittal, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Earlier this week, a new development company focusing on battery storage projects in the US launched with at least US$200 million backing. Nightpeak Energy has been launched by former executives and directors at Recurrent Energy, the US solar PV and storage developer subsidiary of Canadian Solar.

Mercom also noted that 23 mergers and acquisition (M&A) deals happened in the first nine months of this year, up from 15 in January to September 2021.

With the likes of BloombergNEF having identified that the US’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) legislation and Europe’s REPowerEU policy strategy will be likely drivers of an enormous uptick in energy storage deployments in the coming years, it would perhaps not be surprising to see more big deals ring through before the end of the year.

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Arevon Energy Inc. has secured a more than 2 GW DC supply of advanced Series 7 thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar modules from First Solar Inc. to support its growing renewable energy portfolio. Approximately 700 MW DC of the total volume secured includes purchase orders issued prior to the release of First Solar’s Q2 2022 earnings in July this year. These orders will add to Arevon’s existing 2 GW portfolio of operating assets with First Solar modules and will support projects under development in the Midwest and Southwest regions.

“Arevon is at the forefront of powering the energy transition through the development of our nationwide solar pipeline,” says Justin Johnson, Arevon’s COO. “These orders solidify Arevon’s competitive advantage while ensuring we can deliver innovative solutions to our customers.”

“We are pleased to further expand our relationship with First Solar and contribute to the expansion of the US solar value chain,” states John Breckenridge, Arevon’s CEO. “Sourcing American solar technology from First Solar allows us certainty of supply and helps mitigate the risk of supply shortages and project delays. More broadly, it also allows us to support US innovation in photovoltaics, and the expansion of domestic solar manufacturing capacity through our procurement strategy.”

First Solar’s advanced thin film PV modules will support Arevon’s project pipeline through 2027.

“We’re pleased that Arevon has chosen to double down on its commitment to First Solar’s responsibly produced technology,” comments Georges Antoun, chief commercial officer at First Solar. “These multiyear orders reflect a broader trend in the industry where developers are de-risking their project portfolios with strategic, long-term procurement frameworks and sourcing American solar. We are proud to be in a position to enable the growth of leading American developers like Arevon, by providing them with the certainty and long-term visibility they need.”

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The projects are located in the greater Los Angeles area. Image: Slices of Light/Flickr.

New Goldman Sachs-backed developer GridStor has acquired a portfolio of in-development battery storage projects in LA, California, from Upstream Energy, totalling 500MW/2,000MWh.

The Portland-based grid-scale battery storage developer and operator announced the acquisition yesterday (26 October), saying the projects will come online between 2024 and 2026.

The units are located in urban areas in the greater Los Angeles or Los Angeles Basin area, near existing power lines and substations.

One online, they will provide capacity to utilities in the state to ensure power grid reliability amidst an increase in renewable energy penetration. In May, California achieved the milestone of a 100% renewables-powered grid for periods of the day.

The energy storage units’ four-hour duration will allow them to provide power to utilities through the Resource Adequacy framework, grid operator CAISO’s programme to ensure there is enough power to meet demand, with a reserve margin. CAISO does not have centralised capacity auctions like in the UK.

GridStor was founded this year and has backing from Horizon Energy Storage, a fund managed by the Sustainable and Infrastructure Investing groups at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“California has urgent reliability needs, and battery storage is the best way to consistently incorporate clean energy onto the grid and curtail our dependence on fossil fuels,” said Chris Taylor, CEO of GridStor. “The large size and strategic locations of these new projects will position GridStor to become a major player in the California energy storage market as the transition to clean energy continues.”

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Stefaan Sercu

ENGIE North America (ENGIE) has extended the scope of its microgrid offerings with the latest installation at the Santa Barbara Unified School District. ENGIE’s newest microgrid installation at the district includes 4.2 MW of solar across 14 district locations and six microgrids with 3.8 MWh of battery energy storage for backup power and peak demand charge reduction.

The project is expected to offset approximately 90% of the solar array sites’ energy use with renewable energy and the district is expected to save nearly eight million over the project’s lifetime, with additional $6.47 million of value-added benefits from resilience.

“The SBUSD solar microgrids will serve as a model for school districts and other entities anywhere, including how to finance them in a straightforward manner that minimizes upfront costs and risks to the District while also reducing the District’s electricity expenditure,” says Stefaan Sercu, managing director of Energy Solutions Americas at ENGIE. “It’s also important to note that communities can now benefit from state and federal funding for projects like these.”

“The scope for this program is one of the first for a school district in California,” states Santa Barbara Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Hilda Maldonado. “This is a community that has been continually impacted by wildfires and subsequent power shutoffs, mudslides and other natural disasters. This project will be critical in the district’s efforts to preserve power where it can, as well as provide a fiscally responsible power insurance policy that will ultimately aid the entire community.”

After the 2017/18 Thomas Fire, Santa Barbara District staff began researching the feasibility of energy resiliency solutions to preserve critical operations during emergencies and power outages for the more than 15,000 students, faculty and staff. In December 2020, the board of directors unanimously approved the microgrid project owned, operated and maintained by ENGIE North America.

Through the project, the district is now equipped to provide the community with access to continuation of uptime even during utility grid outages and operate in Island Mode at six district sites maintaining service for critical refrigeration systems, priority communications and emergency staging areas systems.

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An existing Matrix Renewables PV plant in Colombia. Image: Matrix Renewables via Twitter.

Spanish renewables platform Matrix Renewables has closed financing for construction of its California-based Gaskell 2 and 3 solar-plus-storage projects, which are already in an advanced construction phase.

US$217 million was provided by MUFG, HSBC, National Bank of Canada and Commonwealth Bank to finance the construction loan, tax equity bridge loan and back-levered term loan for the projects on top of US$92 million received from Bank of America in June.

The projects have a combined capacity of 143MW of solar PV alongside an 80MWh storage system. Five power purchase agreements (PPAs) are in place with utilities and cities in California to offtake the power generated.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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Graphite Solar in Utah’s Carbon County, one of the other two solar projects the pair have contracted for. The 104MWdc/80MWac project, owned by Greenbacker and developed by rPlus, recently went into commercial operation. Image: Greenbacker.

Renewables developer rPlus Energies has signed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for 400MWac/200MW solar-plus-storage project in Emery County, Utah.

Signed with US utility PacifiCorp, the PPA includes a 200MW battery energy storage system (BESS) and is currently the “largest” planned solar-plus-storage facility in Utah, according to rPlus Energies.

Construction of the project is expected to start in early 2023 with Sundt Construction providing engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services for the solar-plus-storage project.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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The company’s Michigan plant. By 2025 LGES said it will have at least 250GWh of annual production capacity in North America, making it the company’s single biggest manufacturing region. Image: LG Energy Solution.

LG Energy Solution has said that the US is its most important target market to focus on, as the company reported record quarterly revenues for Q3 2022.

The South Korean company earned KW522 billion (US$367.5 million) operating profit for the three-month period, from KW7.648 trillion (US$5.4 billion) consolidated revenues.

Revenues were its highest ever recorded, while its profits represented a 166.8% increase from the previous quarter, marking its second highest since Q2 2021, when there were various one-off items that boosted the figures.

LG Energy Solution is active in the electric vehicle (EV), battery energy storage system (BESS) and IT sectors and said that profitability increased in all of its product lines due to increased economies of scale. Average selling price (ASP) reflected higher raw materials costs, while favourable exchange rates also contributed to higher profits.

While the quarterly record should perhaps be put into the context that the company only floated its IPO at the start of this year, it certainly marks a different picture from Q2 this year, when profits were down 24.4% from Q1.

The company attributed that largely to industry headwinds, such as global supply chain issues and temporary lockdowns in China as well as the time gap between raw material costs rising and the company’s ability to reflect that in pricing of finished products.

LG Energy Solution does not breakout figures for sales by segment, although a source close to the company has told Energy-Storage.news previously that it is being considered.

Therefore, while separate performance metrics for the energy storage system segment are not publicly available, company CFO Chang Sil Lee noted that an increase in sales of grid ESS for the North American market was a contributor to its increased revenues.

Inflation Reduction Act a driver to ‘reshape’ battery industry

LG Energy Solution had said in the previous quarter that it is building more production capacity in the US – it aims to put 45% of its footprint in North America by 2025, versus 35% in Asia and 25% in Europe.

Yesterday, the company went further and said the North American market is its most important for its revenue and growth potential.

Unsurprisingly, it cited the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a huge factor in that. While it is probably equally unsurprising that it primarily discussed forecasted rapid growth in the US EV market because of IRA incentives and fuel efficiency standards, LGES said that those new policies will reshape the world’s battery industry.

The company said 250GWh-260GWh of annual production capacity in North America has been secured and that 70% of its total order backlog of KW370 trillion is from North American customers.

It did however note that it will expand and diversify its portfolio in the region with more ESS products and solutions as well as cylindrical battery cells and pouch cells for EVs.

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