Mark Rayfield

Saint-Gobain has signed a 10-year renewable electricity supply agreement (power purchase agreement or PPA) with TotalEnergies for the purchase of solar power for its 145 industrial sites in North America (United States and Canada).

“With this agreement, Saint-Gobain North America will dramatically reduce its CO2 emissions while sending a strong signal to the market that the manufacturing industry is ready to commit to green electricity,” says Mark Rayfield, CEO of Saint-Gobain North America. “This renewable energy project is critical to meeting Saint-Gobain’s commitment to reduce scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 33 percent by 2030 and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.”

“We are excited to support Saint-Gobain and be a part of making their sustainable goals in North America a reality, and we look forward to continuing this mutual effort to decarbonize their energy supplies,” states Marc-Antoine Pignon, managing director of TotalEnergies Renewables USA. “Our ambition in the U.S. is to become a key partner for corporate players committed to achieving carbon neutrality by offering them innovative and cost-effective renewable solutions to decarbonize their electricity consumption.”

This 200 MW PPA is expected to offset Saint-Gobain’s North American CO2 emissions from electricity (scope 2 emissions) by 210,000 Metric Tons per year, a reduction of around 33%. The agreement is expected to start at the end of 2024.

This is the second PPA signed in North America by Saint-Gobain, the first one being a wind project in Blooming Grove, Ill. The two projects combined are expected to represent a 62% reduction in Saint-Gobain North America’s scope 2 emissions.

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Gaskell West 1 Solar Plant

Matrix Renewables, the TPG Rise-backed global renewable energy platform, has closed on its first U.S. construction loan, tax equity bridge loan and back-levered term loan facility for the Gaskell West 2 and Gaskell West 3 projects. The financing of $217 million was provided by MUFG, HSBC, National Bank of Canada and Commonwealth Bank. It follows the $92 million in tax equity financing Matrix received from Bank of America N.A. in June 2022.

The Gaskell West 2 and 3 projects total 143 MW DC of solar energy and incorporate an 80 MWh energy storage system, located in Kern County, Calif. The projects are fully contracted, holding five long-term power purchase agreements with utilities and cities in California.  The projects are well advanced in construction.

“The team has achieved another new milestone for Matrix Renewables in closing the platform’s first non-recourse financing in the U.S. for our flagship Gaskell solar power project,” says Cindy Tindell, managing director and head of U.S. for Matrix Renewables. “We are glad to have partnered on this project with MUFG, HSBC, National Bank of Canada and Commonwealth Bank which together provided a unique financing solution.”

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Image: Werner Slocum, NREL

Moving rows of solar panels farther apart can increase efficiency and improve economics in certain instances by allowing greater airflow to whisk away some heat, according to a new analysis by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Solar panels work by capturing sunlight and converting that to electricity, but the accompanying heat can decrease their power output slightly. The analysis looked beyond current operating assumptions that considered only the amount of sunlight, wind speed, and ambient temperature.

“But in reality, when you look at the layout of the system, like how the modules are spaced apart, what angle they’re at, how high they’re off the ground – that all affects airflow,” says Matthew Prilliman, a NREL researcher whose expertise includes modeling the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems.

Prilliman is lead author of the paper “Technoeconomic Analysis of Changing PV Array Convective Cooling Through Changing Array Spacing,” which appears in the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics. Other co-authors from NREL are Janine Keith and Tim Silverman. Outside NREL, the co-authors are Sarah Smith and Raúl Bayoán Cal from Portland State University, and Marc Calaf and Brooke Stanislawski from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. (Stanislawski is now with NREL.)

The temperature of a PV module is second only to the amount of sunlight it receives in terms of impact on module electrical output. The maximum power output of a module drops by 0.3% to 0.5% per degree increase in module temperature. Sunlight is the primary driver of the module temperature, with the wind speed having a secondary effect.

The analysis, which relied on NREL’s System Advisor Model, demonstrated that a greater separation between rows would improve the performance of a PV system by allowing airflow to cool down the solar modules. Prilliman explains few previously used computer models considered the changes in heat transfer caused by differences in how an array is configured.

“This is relatively unexplored territory,” he says.

The research could be particularly relevant for the growing field of agrivoltaics, in which crops are planted adjacent to or below solar panels. The changing land usage for different layouts would affect the placement of crops, which could in turn also affect wind flow.

“Increasing spacing could enable more varieties of crops and more types of agricultural equipment to be utilized in agrivoltaic systems,” comments Jordan Macknick, who leads a different NREL research project focused on agrivoltaics. “That could potentially make these spaced-out solar systems more cost-effective and compatible with larger-scale agriculture.”

By distancing the panels further, the amount of ground-reflected irradiance on a solar module increases and the incidence of modules casting shade on each other decreases. The increased spacing also allows greater wind flow, which can result in lower module temperatures and higher energy output.

The researchers did not specify how far apart the panels should be because each PV system is different and depends upon local conditions. They did point out the greatest improvements came in climates with low average annual ambient temperatures and moderate to high average annual wind speeds.

A greater separation of rows carries additional costs, the researchers found. Notably, more land is needed as the arrays are spaced out more. In addition, wiring costs increase as the arrays are more spread out. Crucially, the researchers determined the benefits outweigh the costs in many cases.

The Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office funded the research.

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In 2020, 3.7% of U.S. single-family homes, including mobile homes, generated electricity from small-scale solar systems (solar panels installed on a home or building), according to U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS). In 2018, 1.6% of U.S. commercial buildings had small-scale solar generation, according to EIA’s 2018 Commercial Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS).

The presence of small-scale solar generation varied by a number of characteristics. Some of the largest differences were based on region. The West Census Region, where 8.9% of single-family homes (2020 data) had small-scale solar generation, had the highest percentage of homes with small-scale solar generation, mostly in California. Of commercial buildings in the West, 3.8% (48,000) had small-scale solar generation (2018 data). The Northeast Census Region had the second-largest percentage of homes with small-scale solar generation at 4.7% (2020 data). Similarly, for commercial buildings, 2.5% (20,000) had small-scale solar generation (2018 data). These two regions generally have had policies and incentives that have fostered growth of small-scale solar.

The presence of small-scale solar among homes and commercial buildings also differed by year of construction; homes and commercial buildings built in 1980 or later were more likely to have solar than those built before 1980. Homes that were owner-occupied were more likely to have small-scale solar generation than rented homes. In addition, 5.7% of households with incomes of more than $150,000 had small-scale solar generation, compared with 1.1% of households with incomes less than $20,000.

For commercial buildings, government-owned buildings were more likely to have small-scale solar generation than nongovernment-owned buildings. Buildings used for public assembly, education, office space or retail accounted for 61% of all commercial buildings that reported having small-scale solar generation.

CBECS is the only nationally representative source of information on commercial building energy consumption. EIA collected 2018 CBECS data from 6,436 buildings. EIA released preliminary CBECS energy consumption estimates in September 2022, and will release final CBECS data in December 2022. RECS collects information on energy use in primary, occupied housing units.

EIA collected 2020 RECS household energy-use data from 18,496 households, which is the largest responding sample in the program’s history. For the first time, RECS data are available at the state level for all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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South Portland Landfill East (Image: ReVision Energy)

The City of South Portland in Maine is celebrating the completion of a 4.7 MW solar array that sits atop the city’s capped landfill. The array will generate an estimated 5.8 million kWh of renewable energy each year, offsetting 63% of the City of South Portland’s municipal electric load. In total, more than 80% of the city’s municipal electric load will now be offset by solar.

The three-phase project began in 2017 with a 1016 kW (DC) array, which was, at that time, the largest municipal solar project in Maine. In 2022, the expansion of Landfill East and addition of Landfill West added 474 kW (DC) and 3,251 kW (DC) to the total project. Today, these combined solar projects have the largest power potential of any solar array built on a municipal landfill in the state, according to Maine DEP.

“The City of South Portland is thrilled to announce the completion of this multi-phase project,” says City Manager Scott Morelli. “Thanks to this extraordinary collaborative effort, solar energy now powers the vast majority of municipal operations – a win for both the environment and taxpayers.”

The project was financed through power purchase agreements (PPA) managed by ReVision Energy. The City of South Portland paid nothing to install the solar panels. Instead, Calibrant Energy paid the upfront cost and the city will pay for the power generated from the solar panels each month at a rate lower than utility-provided power. After seven years, the city has the option to purchase the system at a reduced price and own all of the solar power generated for the remainder of the warranty period and 40-year commercial lifespan.

“Calibrant Energy is proud to partner with the City of South Portland and ReVision Energy to support the city’s energy transition,” comments Thomas Biddinger, director of partnerships at Calibrant Energy. “Delivering sustainable solar energy with flexible financing will provide economic and environmental benefits to the area for decades to come. This project is closely aligned with Calibrant Energy’s commitment to providing long-term energy solutions that are built for performance and sustainability.”

Beginning in 2013, ReVision Energy, the City of South Portland and the City of Portland spent four years in a collaborative planning partnership before the first solar array was built in 2017.

“Transitioning society from fossil fuels to renewable energy and clean technology is the biggest infrastructure project in the history of humankind, and one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities of the 21st century. The City of South Portland’s clean energy leadership is already saving taxpayers money while significantly reducing local carbon pollution,” states Phil Coupe, co-founder of ReVision Energy. “Because the cost of solar technology has plummeted by 90 percent over the past two decades, the City of South Portland and its citizens will derive a strong economic and environmental return on this solar investment.”

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Armando Martinez

Iberdrola has named Armando Martinez as its new CEO to oversee daily business responsibilities, according to Reuters. The move occurred after the company chose to separate the executive chairman and CEO positions.

Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan, who has led the company for over 16 years, remains as Iberdrola’s executive chairman to manage strategy, reports Jesús Aguado.

Martinez has headed up Iberdrola’s business unit.

Read the full article here.

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Drone photo of Luminace’s project at Brookdale Community College

Brookdale Community College in New Jersey has installed parking lot solar canopies on its Lincroft and Wall campuses. The 5.4 MW DC solar project was developed and is owned and operated by Luminace. Luminace is the North American decarbonization-as-a-service business of Brookfield Renewable. Some of the canopies will even feature electric vehicle charging stations.

“Having a solar facility on campus was made possible with the encouragement and support of Commissioner Director Thomas Arnone and the Monmouth County Board of County Commissioners,” says David M. Stout, Ph.D., Brookdale’s president. “We are honored to have partnered with Luminace, a pioneer in the renewable energy sector, on this state-of-the-art project. This is a significant step toward being a more green and environmentally friendly campus.”

This project is estimated to yield substantial savings over the next 15 years for Brookdale. “This project demonstrates Luminace’s exceptional turnkey decarbonization solutions by providing solar solutions coupled with EV charging infrastructure at no upfront costs to Brookdale Community College,” comments Brendon Quinlivan, senior vice president of development at Luminace. “We are excited about this project and pleased to build on our extensive history of serving educational sector clients.”

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Rendering of the microgrid Sungrow and KarmSolar are building in the Bahariya Oasis, Egypt. Image: Sungrow.

Solar energy company KarmSolar has secured US$2.4 million in bank financing for a solar-plus-storage project in Egypt.

The firm has secured the 47 million EGP (US$2.4 million) from Qatar National Bank ALAHLI, while Ezdaher Financial Advisory assisted with the deal.

The financing comes as KarmSolar launches a phase 2 expansion of the solar microgrid solution at a poultry farm facility in Giza operated by Cairo 3A. The expansion includes the addition of a battery energy storage system and an expansion of the solar plant’s capacity.

Sungrow is providing the battery storage unit, as previously reported by Energy-Storage.news. The energy storage system will comprise of a 2.576MWp PV inverter and 1MW/3.957MWh of storage.

KarmSolar’s co-founder and CEO Ahmed Zahran described the project as “Egypt’s first financed solar battery PPA project”, adding:

“There is rising interest from established financial institutions to explore and support advanced solartechnologies. This new milestone will definitely boost the deployment of battery solutions inEgypt and across the region on a much larger scale.’’

KarmSolar has a PPA to supply electricity to the poultry farm using a microgrid combining solar PV, storage and diesel generators. The original on-site solar PV station covers 30% of Cairo 3A’s energy needs using renewable energy, reducing its reliance on diesel.

It is not the first solar-plus-storage project in Egypt, however.

A project combining 30MW of solar PV with a 7.5MW battery storage system, also being supplied by Sungrow, will be commissioned during Q4 2022 according to the customer, goldmine operator Centamin in a news release from 13 October. The update from Centamin, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, didn’t mention the energy storage component.

German developer and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor juwi is delivering the project.

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The Oslo-based firm is set to deploy the system in H2 2023. Image: Kyoto Group.

Norway-based thermal energy storage company Kyoto Group has signed a letter of intent (LOI) to deploy an 88MWh system in Spain in the second half of 2023.

The LOI has been signed with an unnamed company described in a press release as “one of the largest owners of cogeneration facilities in Spain”. The agreement, if followed through, will see Kyoto Group deploy an 88MWh energy storage system at one of the company’s facilities in Spain, providing emissions-free heat production 24/7.

Major owners of combined cycle gas turbine plants in the country include Naturgy, AES, Endesa and Iberdrola.

“With the Heatcube system, we would like to operate our plant in a more optimal way than we have been doing up to now, allowing the generation of additional renewable steam for our industrial process. Additionally, we want to continue with our strategy of reducing the carbon footprint in our facilities,” said the COO of Kyoto’s unnamed partner company.

Although the link between the two developments is not clear, Kyoto bought a Spain-based firm with a number of intellectual property rights related to the development of thermal energy storage, which it then renamed Kyoto Technology Spain, in March. The acquisition of Mercury Energy was covered at the time by Energy-Storage.news.

Kyoto’s Heatcube product is a modular storage solution for thermal energy, which works by heating salt to – currently – 415 degrees celsius, which is then used to produce stream for industrial production processes. The company says its ternary salt can store thermal energy up to 525 degrees celsius.

The Heatcube can be configured with storage capacities from 16-96 MWh, or more, with a discharge for each Heatcube of up to 5MW.

In August, it signed an LOI with corrugated cardboard manufacturer Glomma Papp to deploy a system for a commissioning as early as summer 2023.

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An energy storage system deployed by Quartux. Image: Quartux.

System integrator Quartux will soon deploy the largest battery system in the Mexican energy storage market, the company’s co-founder told Energy-Storage.news, discussing opportunities and challenges in the country.

“We’ve grown a lot and are now looking at a pipeline of 300MWh for the next few quarters,” said Alejandro Fajer, managing director of the Mexico City-based firm.

Quartux recently got a 3.2MWh order from Revolve Renewable Power Corp for a battery storage unit at a major hotel chain in Cancun. That will be significantly eclipsed by a 25MWh system Quartux will install at another hotel site, although Fajer isn’t revealing the buyer there.

It will be the largest battery energy storage unit in Mexico and the largest commercial & industrial-located (C&I) system in Latin America, he claimed.

“These are very large resorts that are highly energy intensive with AC etc, and are obviously obliged to consume energy in certain expensive time periods. They are also often not in the best available position in terms of electricity grid around them, so can have bad quality and intermittency that could be solved with the energy storage system,” he said.

The previous largest in Mexico that Energy-Storage.news has been aware of is Wartsila’s 10MW system, co-located with a wind farm and announced in February 2021.

Mexican energy storage market and Quartux’s model

The energy storage market in Mexico is mainly a behind-the-meter (BTM) C&I play after the Andrés Manuel López Obrador (often referred to as AMLO) government made it harder to buy and sell energy on the wholesale markets. This has not killed the front-of-meter grid-scale market, but lessened the opportunity, Fajer said.

The opportunities are therefore in modifying large electricity users’ consumption curves, which can generate 20-40% savings on energy costs by avoiding high peak hour tariffs. Battery units can also help industrial users adhere to new, stricter grid codes which cost 2-10% of a company’s net revenue if not met – an offering Fajer calls ‘energy quality services’.

Quartux buys its battery cells and components from abroad and integrates them into energy storage systems in Mexico. Fajer said the company is active in more than 60% of Mexico’s territories across 10 different industries, hotels being a significant one of them.

“We effectively become energy advisers for the companies we work with by monitoring their consumption curves 24/7. We can tell them if their curve is perfect for adding some solar, and we can then do that solar installation,” he said.

Alejandro Fajer, managing director of the firm. Image: Quartux.

“We work with a variety of business models. We can sell the systems outright and charge an operational fee. For this model, the customer makes a return in 2-5 years. We also provide a leasing model.”

“But the most interesting for me is storage-as-a-service, which we first did in 2017. This is where we put all the upfront investment and share in the savings that are generated.”

That model has also been launched by other players in the Mexican energy storage market, most recently renewable energy company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) together with US-based energy analytics and software company Energy Toolbase and local developer Ecopulse.

Alongside Ecopulse, which also says it has deployed in over 60% of Mexico’s states, On Energy Storage is another competitor to Quartux. Energy-Storage.news interviewed its Mexico country manager back in January last year.

Quartux recently received outside investment but the company wouldn’t reveal the identity of the new investors.

Mexico’s domestic energy storage supply chain

As Energy-Storage.news recently reported, Mexico could get Latin America’s first major lithium-ion battery cell gigafactory with the world’s largest battery manufacturer CATL announcing that it was looking at sites in the country.

The government is well aware of the importance of Mexico’s substantial lithium reserves and has made moves to be able to own more of that process and extraction capacity, Fajer said.

But even before that, Mexico is well-positioned to capitalise on the US energy storage markets’ process of nearshoring its supply chain and reducing reliance on China. One of the US’ biggest battery storage system integrators Powin recently moved the assembly of its products to a site in Monterrey, north Mexico.

“Moving more production to Mexico would comply with the US’ desire to reduce the amount of Chinese components. We’re in a great position to be selling those systems, you can save a lot on transportation costs and tariffs. We are talking to players that are looking to produce battery systems in Mexico and helping them navigate how to get there,” Fajer added.

Revolve Renewable Energy Corp recently acquired Centrica Business Systems Mexico from the UK-listed multinational energy firm.

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