Powin’s Centipede modular stacked energy storage system. Image: Powin.

Battery energy storage system integrator Powin has acquired EKS Energy, a provider of advanced power electronics and energy management solutions for energy storage and renewables.

Oregon-based Powin said the acquisition will enable it to deliver a complete AC energy storage platform that can interface with multiple generation assets, is capable of advanced control functionality to support microgrid applications and comply with the most challenging grid codes.

EKS Energy describes itself as a designer, manufacturer and system integrator of advanced power electronics and energy management solutions (EMS) for distributed energy generation/storage and grid management.

It appears to either be a carve-out or a re-brand of the company GPTech (Greenpower Technologies Group), which was founded in Sevilla, Spain. EKS/GPTech has deployed battery storage systems in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Chile while GPTech had revenue of €45 million in 2021 (US$44.5 million), according to Spanish outlets.

GPTech was in the top 10 energy storage inverter suppliers in IHS Markit’s Energy Storage (PCS) – Market Overview report for 2020.

The deal adds EKS’ Power Conversion System and Power Plant Controller to Powin’s offering, while other new products include PV inverters, DC-to-DC converters and multi-port inverters, which maximise performance and profits for utility-scale solar-plus-storage projects.

In an interview with Energy-Storage.news back in May, Powin CEO Geoff Brown agreed that providing a software package that covered renewable generation assets as well as energy storage was essential for system integrators.

When asked if the company would build these capabilities in-house or through acquisitions, at the time he said: “We’re evaluating all options but I would not necessarily agree that it’s a necessity to do it inorganically”.

In a press release announcing the acquisition, Brown said: “This landmark deal accelerates our mission to building the grid of the future by delivering safe, scalable and integrated storage solutions.”

Powin has gone through several changes in its financial and shareholding structure in the last few months. In June, it sold a minority stake to an investment arm of Samsung Group. Then, just a month later, it raised US$135 million from existing investors Trilantic, Energy Impact Partners and new investor GIC, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund.

In project news, in August it entered into a partnership with a developer in Australia to deploy over 1.7GWh of its battery storage solutions across the country over a two-year period.

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Avantus’ Michael Foster, Fluence’s Kiran Kuraswamy, Lightsourcebp’s Sara Cayal, Form Energy’s Molly Bales and Carrie Bellamy of Malta Inc. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media

Lightsourcebp is considering which long-duration energy storage technologies would be best suited for integration with its US solar power portfolio.

Sara Cayal, global head of PV integrated solutions at the solar developer, was speaking on a panel discussion on long-duration energy storage (LDES) held on Day One of the RE+ 2022 clean energy industry trade event in California.

Recently ranked top among global utility-scale solar developers by Mercom, Lightsourcebp has been looking to add energy storage to its solar farms, Cayal said, and supportive policies in the US mean non-lithium LDES technologies could be chosen.

“We are looking at adding to storage to our solar farms; that can be battery storage, it could be green hydrogen,” Cayal said, adding that “this is exactly the time [when] we need to discuss long duration because we have incentives, and we now have the power to make it happen”.

Cayal later in the discussion noted that in regions like Texas’ ERCOT market, many megawatt-hours of renewable power are lost to curtailment during periods of excess generation, which LDES could be suited to solve.

As with some other sources Energy-Storage.news spoke to at the event, Cayal also added that “competing with electric vehicles (EVs)” for battery supply isn’t working, referring to the major cause of supply chain constraints for lithium-ion.

The session’s moderator, Michael Foster at developer Avantus – recently rebranded from 8minute Solar Energy – asked the participants for their definitions of long duration. Cayal and Fluence VP of growth and head of commercial Kiran Kuraswamy agreed that it would broadly be eight hours or more.

Anything over eight hours “goes beyond the constraint” of lithium-ion technology, Cayal said. When pressed by Foster whether that meant lithium would still be competitive at eight hours, said that when it came to evaluating technologies, it might be better to not compare purely in terms of hours stored and discharged.

The durability of some LDES technologies to perform many duty cycles over a long lifetime presents an opportunity to reduce the amount of planning required for augmentation, for example.

Molly Bales of Form Energy said different use cases will require types of energy storage, from the shorter duration applications performed by lithium-ion up to eight hours and diurnal storage beyond that, to storage effective over many hours, or even days.

Form Energy is developing and commercialising a proprietary battery technology based on an iron and air chemistry, designed to offer up to 100 hours of storage. Multi-day storage offers a different use case based on resiliency and reliability of energy supply, rather than daily market participation or peak shifting, Bales said.

Fluence’s Kuraswamy said that virtual transmission, where energy storage is used to directly enhance the transmission grid and ease congestion, could be a promising application for longer-duration storage.

The energy storage system integrator and technology provider is technology agnostic and continues to evaluate new technologies, Kuraswamy said. What alternative technologies to lithium-ion need to do, is prove not just that they are competitive for the applications lithium already does well, but that they can provide answers to applications lithium is not suited for.

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Jason Whitaker

Shoals Technologies Group Inc., a provider of electrical balance of systems (EBOS) solutions for solar, storage and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure, and utility-scale solar tracker company Nextracker LLC, have unveiled a new North-South Big Lead Assembly (BLA) trunk bus product.

To address challenges associated with site access, Shoals and Nextracker have collaborated to innovate a new North-South BLA trunk product, which is specially optimized for NX Horizon tracker rows. In this North-South BLA product, the trunk bus runs parallel, rather than perpendicular, to the torque tube and transition boxes along the North-South row step down the size of the trunk bus along the tracker rows. Without any structures to impede site access, ongoing power plant O&M is simpler and faster.

Compared to conventional in-field North-South wiring methods, Shoals North-South BLA delivers a 43% savings in PV wiring installation labor, a 60% savings in DC wiring O&M, and a 0.25% increase in energy yield due to less DC wiring voltage drop.

“We are proud to partner with Nextracker to make our leading solar ecosystems work optimally together, resulting in utility-scale solar that is more cost effective for our customers,” says Jason Whitaker, CEO of Shoals. “We will continue to innovate collaboratively with Nextracker to enhance our North-South BLA product to further optimize its architecture and installation methodologies, enabling even more cost savings.”

“This collaboration with Shoals provides a critical solution to an industry-wide challenge,” states Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker. “We are excited this North-South BLA product is now available, helping more projects realize the long-term benefit of our independent row trackers.”

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Mukesh Sethi

Panasonic Eco Systems North America, a division of Panasonic Corporation of North America, has unveiled two new lines of all-black compact EverVolt solar modules. The new 430W/420W HK Black Series panels, with half-cut cells and heterojunction technology with gapless connections, offer the most powerful modules in the company’s portfolio. Adding to Panasonic’s suite of modules made with Passivated Emitter and Rear Contact (PERC) technology, the new 400W/390W VK Black Series modules provide eco-conscious homeowners with a greater range of solar options at a more accessible price point.

The 430W and 420W EverVolt HK Black Series modules have efficiency ratings of 22.2% and 21.7%, respectively, allowing homeowners to utilize high levels of power production while using less roof space. Homeowners can benefit from greater energy production throughout the day, including on the hottest days in the warmest climates, due to the modules’ industry-leading temperature coefficient of 0.26%/°C. With one of the industry’s lowest annual degradation rates, the Panasonic panels are expected to provide power output of at least 92% in the 25th year after installation.

Panasonic’s new 400W/390W VK Black Series modules, made with half-cut cells and PERC technology, have module efficiency of 20.5% and 20%, respectively, and power output of at least 84.8% after 25 years.

“Recent news that homeowners will be able to take advantage of the Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC), is making solar and battery storage an increasingly attractive investment” says Mukesh Sethi, director of solar and energy storage at Panasonic Eco Systems North America. “With over 40 years’ experience in the solar industry and more than a century of innovation, Panasonic is well-positioned to be a long-term partner to eco-conscious homeowners, whether they are considering solar solutions for the first time or looking to upgrade their current system.”

“We continue to develop and introduce to the market new solutions so that our valued installers are equipped with a wide array of wattage, sizes and price options to grow their business and meet the diverse needs of consumers who rely on their expertise,” adds Sethi.

Both new models are covered under Panasonic’s EverVolt AllGuard All System Warranty when purchased with EverVolt ESS 2.0, which covers solar panels and battery storage when bundled together. The EverVolt AllGuard All System Warranty covers product performance and labor across all major system components, including 25 years of coverage for Panasonic solar panels, 25 years for the racking system, 10 years for the inverter and 10 years for Panasonic EverVolt 2.0 ESS. If purchased independently of EverVolt ESS 2.0, the modules are covered under Panasonic’s Triple Guard and AllGuard warranties.

Both module series will be available Spring 2023. EverVolt ESS 2.0 will begin shipping in January 2023.

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A 60 MW ground power station project of SEG Solar in Florida

SEG Solar is establishing a photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing plant in Houston, Texas with an anticipated annual capacity of more than 2 GW. The facility is expected to commence construction at the end of 2022 and be fully operational by mid-2023. The plant will be equipped with three state-of-the-art production lines capable of producing high efficiency N type Topcon solar modules with 182mm or 210mm solar cells. 

The development of this facility is the next step in SEG’s long-term product localization strategy designed to better serve customers in the United States.

“SEG is very excited to enter the U.S. manufacturing market at this time,” says Jim Wood, CEO of SEG. “The establishment of this facility now makes sense on a number of different levels due to the recent incentives for solar manufacturing included in the Inflation Reduction Act and the current legislative climate. This plant will give SEG more control over the supply chain and simplify transportation logistics, thereby providing customers with competitive pricing and even more assurance of on-time deliveries.”

SEG is committed to sourcing components and other materials for the production of the modules at this facility from local suppliers in the United States. As a result, SEG anticipates that the modules manufactured at this facility will qualify for local content incentives and avoid or significantly reduce many of the tariffs and other restrictions facing manufacturers outside of the United States. The modules produced at this facility will be “Assembled in the U.S.” and may also be eligible for certain other certifications.

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Hi-MO 5 54-cell module

Solar technology company LONGi has launched a new solar module specifically designed for residential and commercial applications in the U.S. market. The new Hi-MO 5 54-cell module, based on the new market standard M10 182-mm-monocrystaline wafer, will be available in early 2023, first as a monofacial module with a bifacial module to follow later in the year.

Based on the same technology used in the company’s large-format utility-scale 72-cell modules, the Hi-MO 5 54-cell module delivers superior power generation, reliable performance, high module efficiency and reduced system costs with an aesthetic appearance for rooftop distributed generation projects.

The Hi-MO 5 54-cell module features power outputs up to 420 W and maximum efficiencies of 21.5%. The monofacial module comes in an all-black design and has a 12-year warranty for materials and processing and a 25-year warranty for linear power output. The bifacial module will be a dual-glass design and carries a 12-year warranty for materials and processing and a 30-year warranty for linear power output.

Weighing less than 50 lbs., the Hi-MO 5 54-cell can be handled and installed easily on rooftops and is compatible with standard module racking and mounting systems. With its optimized electrical parameters, the Hi-MO 5 54-cell is compatible with smart module-level power electronics (MLPE) devices such as Enphase microinverters and SolarEdge optimizers as well as mainstream string inverters.

“We have strong customer interest in the new Hi-MO 5 54-cell module. Since its older sibling the Hi-MO 5 72-cell module has been our best-selling product for the utility sector in the U.S., we expect very high demand for the new format,” says Aaron Thurlow, head of distributed generation for LONGi Solar North America. “The full weight of LONGi’s advanced M10 technology, vertically integrated manufacturing, and financial strength stands behind the Hi-MO 5 54-cell product, making it one of the most promising distributed generation solar products LONGi has brought to the U.S. market to date. It’s yet another example of how LONGi is helping to propel the clean energy transformation into the terawatt era.”

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Toledo Solar, an American manufacturer of PV solar panels, is expanding its domestic manufacturing plans at its Perrysburg, Ohio, manufacturing facility to reach 2.8 GW of manufacturing capacity by 2027.

“We are excited to continue our commitment to investing in U.S. solar manufacturing right here in Ohio,” says Aaron Bates, founder and CEO of Toledo Solar. “Now that Congress and President Biden have moved forward to protect American jobs by fighting the use of slave labor overseas with the enforcement of the Uyghur Act and the leveling of the playing field in solar with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, Toledo Solar is going to match that dedication by committing to our domestic expansion. We are grateful for the leadership of representatives Marcy Kaptur, Tim Ryan and Sherrod Brown, Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and the Biden-Harris administration for their efforts to advance the country’s renewable energy capacity for generations.”

Toledo Solar was also a partner in the team that recently won a proposal to establish a Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium with a funding from a $20 million program that was established by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office to hasten the development of cheaper, more efficient cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar cells.

“Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act’s smart investments in American-made solar, Ohio’s energy industry is on the move. Toledo Solar represents the best of American energy innovation, and I will continue working to ensure we invest in production and good-paying jobs right here in Northwest Ohio,” states Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur.

“This is an exciting day for Ohio and the future of American energy production. I want to thank Toledo Solar for continuing to lead the way into the next generation of manufacturing, creating new good-paying jobs for Ohio workers, and lowering costs for working families,” adda Congressman Ryan. “Thanks to our Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, we’re creating an environment that positions our state to reap investments from businesses like Toledo Solar to ensure we are at the forefront of innovation happening in the United States and the rest of the world. I will continue to work to level the playing field for American businesses and stop countries like China from undermining domestic solar production with unfair competition and illegal practices.”

“The Wright Center for Photovoltaics Innovation and Commercialization at the University of Toledo looks forward to continuing to work with Toledo Solar to support their development through collaborative research efforts and by providing a creative and well-equipped workforce. The exciting expansion plans announced by Toledo Solar confirms our region’s international leadership in solar energy,” comment the University of Toledo’s Drs. Frank Calzonetti and Michael Heben in a joint statement.

Image: Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash

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GoldiSolar, an India-based solar brand, has launched its HELOC̣ Pro module series. It features mono-facial and bi-facial modules with M10 wafer size. With a power of 560 W and 400 W, the new modules can be widely used in utility, industrial, institutional, agriculture and rooftop applications. The 560 W module will be in glass-to-glass, and 400 W will be in an all-black variant.

“Goldi Solar is proud to roll out HELOC̣ Pro in the USA,” says Bharat Bhut, director of Goldi Solar. “The company has earmarked a significant solar module production capacity for exports. With the strong and favorable bilateral relations between the two countries, we believe that the USA will continue to be an important market for India. Goldi Solar aims to leverage the opportunity with our Made-In-India panels.”

Vigorous quality tests have been undertaken, and the modules have been shown to provide mechanical support up to 5400 Pa snow load and 2400 Pa wind load. The panels come with a 12-year product warranty and a 30-year performance warranty and certifications such as CEC (California Energy Commission and UL (Underwriter Laboratories), and DNV (Det Norske Veritas). The advanced lab tests comply with IEC (The International Electrotechnical Commission) and ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials and Standards.)

Goldi Solar’s existing facilities in Gujarat (India) have a module manufacturing capacity of 2.5 GW.

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CESA/Strategen’s Jin Noh spoke to Energy-Storage.news at this year’s RE+ event in Anaheim. Image: Sean Rai-Roche / Solar Media

This year, Solar Power International and Energy Storage International, two of the biggest shows in the US for their respective industries, are taking place in California under a new brand, called RE+ 2022.

Energy-Storage.news is at the event this week in the city of Anaheim. While it is both a national and very international exhibition and conference, we considered it a good opportunity to learn about the progress California has made as a leading state for energy storage – and the challenges it faces in its energy transition.

Jin Noh, a policy director at the California Energy Storage Alliance (CESA) and director at Strategen Consulting, spoke to the site on the eve of the show.

CESA is focusing on three or four main initiatives to advance the deployment of energy storage the state needs, Noh says, with the recent heatwaves showing just how important a role batteries already play in helping keep California’s lights on.

That means working to overcome challenges in getting projects permitted and interconnected to the grid, negotiating supply chain issues and more. Sometimes this will mean getting down into the weeds of policy and advocating for changes like its recent win over property zoning rules.

“Our focus is really on deployment. The heat wave clearly demonstrated that storage really did well and performed on the margins to provide anywhere from 3,000 to 3,500 megawatts of operating capacity during each of those days,” Noh says.

However, there have also been well-publicised delays in getting new storage facilities onto the CAISO grid in California, for which there have been a “multitude of sources”.

For instance, a lot of the most recent delays tracked by Jin Noh and his team have been for solar-plus-storage projects, rather than standalone battery storage. This is because of the recent uncertainty over US trade tariffs for imported solar modules, amid claims that Chinese forced labour has been involved, with subsequent alleged attempts to circumvent tariffs by routing production through Southeast Asian supply chains.

Whereas for standalone energy storage, it’s a more “case-by-case” picture. In some cases, lockdowns in China have led to battery containers or other major components like transformers being stranded at ports, in others it can be long interconnection wait times.

Impacted companies are “most likely renegotiating some of their contract,” according to the CESA expert, especially if they are running a risk of missing guaranteed delivery dates for project completions or development milestones. Some developers might seek an extension to the delivery date in exchange for a reduction in the agreed power purchase agreement (PPA) price, for example, explaining to their customers that the circumstances faced are unprecedented.

Need for long-duration and even multi-day storage is clear for California

CESA and Strategen together have long advocated that the role long-duration energy storage (LDES) will play in California’s low carbon grid of the future needs to be recognised quickly so that investment decisions impacting the next 10 to 20 years or more of development can start to be made. A study from the two modelled a potential need for up to 55GW of LDES on the CAISO grid by 2045.

“The need for long-duration storage is clear in my mind,” Noh says.

How much exactly is needed remains subject to inputs and assumptions at the modelling level but, nonetheless, Noh said many regulators, legislators and buyers and sellers of technology are all clear that the basic need will become acute as California reaches ever-higher levels of renewable energy penetration on the grid.

“Right now, what we’re focusing on is: how do we commercialise these [LDES] technologies?”

At state level, policy support has been offered by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom including US$140 million of funding for LDES technologies in the state’s most recently passed legislative package on clean energy. At national level, CESA hopes some of the Department of Energy’s US$500 million funding for LDES demonstrations will find its way to projects in California.

“The key question now comes to [be], how do we commercialise LDES? What will bring financiers, insurance folks, to start investing in these technologies, and to be comfortable? What’s the level of operational track record that’s needed, so that we can start getting these things actually deployed?”

Famously, a group of California community energy providers – so-called Community Choice Aggregators – hosted first-of-its-kind RfPs for LDES, seeking eight-hour duration storage projects.

The result was the selection of two long duration lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, which surprised some people. The expectation had been that some emerging non-lithium alternative might be picked.

As we heard in our February interview with the CEO of one of those CCAs, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, the energy suppliers received proposals with a wide range of technologies including different types of flow batteries, zinc-based batteries and mechanical storage like compressed air.

Reasons behind lithium projects being selected were “nuanced,” and didn’t necessarily mean lithium had “beaten” the other technologies, SVCE’s Girish Balachandran said, with the grid likely to need many different kinds of energy storage to meet California’s needs.

However, Jin Noh said that from his own conversations with some of the people involved, the selection of lithium-ion projects indicated that to some extent the commercialisation gap still very much exists between the most popular electrochemical energy storage technology today and its various alternative long-duration contenders.

CESA’s work in this area is focusing on bridging that gap, helping tech providers overcome the dreaded “Valley of Death” and get their technology operational in the field, not just at lab or pilot deployment level.

“Being grid-connected, responding to ISO (grid) dispatch signals, having real performance guarantees under a contract: I think that is the tipping point to actually having these things widely deployed, and then having them just be procured on an all-source, day-to-day RFP basis,” Noh says.

Earlier this week, a team from LDES startup Form Energy blogged for this site on California’s emergent need for long-duration (more than eight-hour duration) and multi-day (more than one day’s duration) energy storage.

Noh says that the recent heatwave showed that that need might come sooner rather than later. One interesting learning that he got came towards the latter stage of the events in the second week of September.

Solar PV generation dropped quite significantly due to factors like smoke from wildfires and imminent hurricane conditions. A usual 13GW of solar production on the grid became 8GW.

“As we look to depend on a grid that’s heavily solar, heavily renewable, it’s kind of highlighting how we probably need to look at this more closely, as to how much do we need multi day [storage]? How do we develop products so that, we hold those for those days and deliver it?”

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Rendering of the Edwards Sanborn solar-plus-storage project in Kern County, California. It will have a 3,191MWh battery storage system, one of the biggest in the world. Image: Terra-Gen / CPA.

Developer Terra-Gen has closed US$969 million in project financing for the second phase of Edwards Sanborn Solar-plus-Storage facility in California, which will bring it to 3,191MWh of energy storage capacity.

The $959 million financing comprises a US$460 million construction and term loan facility and a US$96 million construction and revolving letter of credit facility, led by BNP Paribas, CoBank, ING, and Nomura Securities, as well as a US$403 million tax equity bridge facility from U.S. Bank.

The Edwards Sanborn Solar-plus-Storage facility in Kern County will total 755MW of solar PV alongside the battery energy storage when the second phase comes online over Q3 and Q4 2022 and Q3 2023. It combines both stand-alone battery storage and batteries which charge from the PV.

The first phase came online late last year, as reported by Energy-Storage.news, meaning 345 MW of PV and 1,505 MWh are already operational. The second phase will add 410MW of nameplate solar PV (358MW at the point of interconnection) and 1,786 MWh of battery storage.

The solar PV is expected to come online in Q4 2022 and the battery storage should be fully operational in Q3 2023.

Mortenson is providing engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services on both the solar and energy storage. First Solar is supplying the solar modules and LG Chem, Samsung and BYD are supplying the batteries.

Unsurprisingly for a project of this size and scope, the eventual total size and capacity has changed several times since it was first announced and a third phase has now been announced making the combined site even larger. The energy storage component has been increased several times and appears to be growing further, while the solar may have been reduced or delayed.

From a planned total of 1,118MW of solar and 2,165MWh of energy storage when first announced in December 2020, Terra-Gen said it is now advancing development on future phases that will include over 2,000MW of incremental solar and energy storage. These future phases will be financed in 2023 and begin to come online in 2024.

Jim Pagano, Terra-Gen CEO, said: “Consistent with the first phase of the Edwards Sanborn project, the second phase deploys an innovate offtake structure that has been well received in the financing markets and allows us to raise the capital necessary to progress the construction of this transformative project.”

Offtakers for the project include cafe chain Starbucks and Clean Power Alliance (CPA), one of California’s growing ranks of Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) groups.

Investor-owned utility PG&E is also procuring a substantial chunk – 169MW/676MWh – of the project’s power through the California ISO’s (CAISO) Resource Adequacy framework, the means by which CAISO ensures utilities have enough supply to meet demand (with a reserve margin).

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