BHP’s Iron Ore Port Headland in Western Australia. Image: BHP.

Australian mining group BHP will use a 45MW solar, 35MW battery energy storage system from Alinta Energy to halve emissions at its WA Iron Ore port facilities at Port Headland by end-2024.

The company has signed a renewables power purchase agreement (PPA) with utility Alinta Energy, which will see the construction of the solar and energy storage project. It has not revealed the underlying battery technology or duration of the system.

They will be built at Alinta’s Port Headland 210MW dual fuel gas and distillate power plant 14km away from the port facilities operated by BHP, which will be the foundation customer of the co-located project.

A press release didn’t say exactly when the site will be completed between now and end-2024, but said construction of the solar farm should start in December 2022 and would seek to utilise local Aboriginal group-owned businesses.

The solar array is expected to provide 100% of the forecasted average daytime energy requirements for BHP’s port facilities. The remaining power needs will be met through the battery storage and the existing gas power facilities. BHP said the expected halving of emissions is based on current forecast demand compared with its emissions for its financial year 2020.

The port connects to BHP’s mining operations in the Pilbara region, including Newman, Mining Area C, Yandi and Jimbleba, and is one of the largest in the world with around 300 million tonnes of iron ore exported a year. The transportation, unload and loading of iron ore generates substantial emissions.

But mining operations themselves have a far, far greater energy demand. A consortium founded recently said that by 2030, the mining industry in Australia alone will require 9,710GWh of energy storage, some 13x what analysts are forecasting will have been deployed by that year.

BHP and Alinta Energy have also entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the development of the Shay Gap Wind Farm, a 45MW facility currently planned for a potential first-generation date of 2027.

The deal builds on BHP’s previous PPAs to provide renewable power to provide renewable energy to its Nickel West operations in Western Australia, Olympic Dam operations in South Australia, BMA operations in Queensland and the Escondida copper mine in Chile.

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EDP Renewables North America (EDPR NA), a renewable energy developer and operator in North America, has started construction on its 240 MW Cattlemen I Solar Park in Milam County, Texas, which was developed and constructed, and will be operated by EDPR NA.

“Cattlemen is EDP Renewables’ first solar park in Texas and will soon be our largest operational solar park in our North American portfolio,” says Kris Cheney, EDPR NA’s executive vice president for Central and Western regions and Mexico, environmental affairs, and energy storage analytics. “The Milam County community has been a great partner throughout Cattlemen’s development. As we move closer to operation, we look forward to continuing that partnership as a contributing member of the community and expanding upon our relationship with the landowners, local officials, and residents.”

Cattlemen has two long-term commercial agreements in-place for the project: a 156 MW power purchase agreement (PPA) with Meta and a 60 MW PPA with Bristol Myers Squibb. Cattlemen Solar Park is the second PPA that EDP Renewables and Meta have executed; the companies’ first PPA was a 139 MW contract for EDPR NA’s 200 MW Headwaters II Wind Farm in Indiana.

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A render of Energy Vault’s Energy Vault Resiliency Center. Image: Energy Vault.

Gravity-based energy storage company Energy Vault has been issued a mandate for an initial 2GWh of its proprietary solution at net-zero industrial parks in China.

The first site has been confirmed for a 2GWh Energy Resiliency Center, its long duration energy storage solution (pictured), at an industrial development in Inner Mongolia.

The industrial parks are being developed by EIPC, part of state organisation Investment Association of China, selected provincial and local governments, and Atlas Renewables. Atlas Renewables is majority-owned by environmental management services company China Tianying and signed a US$50 million licensing agreement for Energy Vault’s technology back in February this year.

The parks will use Energy Vault’s gravity energy storage technology and its Energy Management Software (EMS) platform to support the country’s ’30-60′ climate change policy: to reach Carbon Peak in 2030 and Carbon Neutrality in 2060.

Although precise use cases of the company’s energy storage system were not spelt out in a press release, Atlas Renewables’ CEO Eric Fang said it would “help with economic dispatching of power and power grid efficiency.”

Energy Vault has been expanding its activities in deploying lithium-ion based battery energy storage systems with roughly 1GWh under development or in the pipeline for Wellhead Electric and W Power and Jupiter Power in the US. That division is headed by John Jung, former CEO of battery storage and EMS pioneer Greensmith Energy until its acquisition by Wärtsilä in 2017.

The company started construction in the second quarter of this year on its first large-scale deployment of the gravity-based solution in China, a 100MWh system with the local partners, as reported by Energy-Storage.news.

While announcing the 2GWh mandate, Energy Vault CEO Robert Piconi said: “Together with Atlas Renewable, CNTY and the EIPC, we are making significant progress ahead of our original plans on the deployment of the first 100MWh EVx system to support grid resiliency and delivery of renewable energy to the Chinese national grid, as well as additional development and deployment of additional EVx systems in China as this announcement demonstrates.”

The company is expecting revenue of US$75-100 million in 2022 and roughly another US$600 million in 2023, it announced in its most recent quarterly results.

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KCE NY-1, the first grid-scale energy storage project completed in New York, availed of the bulk storage incentives offered by NYSERDA through its Bridge Incentive programme. Image: Key Capture Energy.

A solicitation for large-scale energy storage could be hosted in about a year’s time as part of the push towards New York achieving its target of deploying 6GW of energy storage on the grid by 2030.

The plan was discussed at the RE+ 2022 clean energy industry conference in Anaheim, California on Monday (19 September) by David Sandbank, a VP for distributed energy resources (DERs) at New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

Together with the New York Department of Public Service (DPS), which is New York’s utilities commission, NYSERDA has been tasked by the state’s government with coming up with roadmaps for encouraging the adoption of energy storage.

After Roadmap 1.0, published in 2018, included upfront incentives for both ‘retail’-scale storage systems below 5MWh capacity and larger ‘bulk’ storage. That has so far led to the procurement of some 1.3GW of energy storage that has been awarded and contracted for by utilities in the state, with more than a dozen more gigawatts in NYISO grid interconnection queues.

Roadmap 2.0 is likely to keep the upfront incentives for retail storage but bring in a new scheme for bulk projects, Sandbank said.

New York has an ambitious clean energy and climate crisis mitigation policy programme in place, to reach 70% renewable electricity by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2040. The targeted 6GW of cumulative storage deployments – the highest level set by any state in the US – would support those aims directly.

NYSERDA’s David Sandbank noted that not only does New York need to pursue those aggressive climate and renewables targets, but at the same time and in tandem, there is a “strong movement” toward electrification of buildings, which could double the load on the grid.

Meanwhile as with other regions that have been deploying significant amounts of renewable energy, New York’s peak demand periods for electricity move to later in the day or evening and become longer in duration.

To achieve the goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act policy, to give it its proper name, Sandbank said New York therefore needs to deploy more renewables, invest in transmission upgrades to enable renewable power to travel across the state from rural areas to more densely populated urban areas and fossil fuel retirements need to happen en masse.

That 6GW of energy storage needs to be in place on the grid before any of those things can happen, because, as NYSERDA has realised “all of those processes become more expensive and less efficient without [energy] storage,” Sandbank said.

NYSERDA and DPS’ roadmaps have the goals of designing crucial market reforms, incentivising private market action and prioritising the elimination of the most polluting of New York’s fossil fuel plants.

New incentive scheme to support bulk energy storage in New York

Sandbank said that mechanisms to encourage bulk energy storage development need to be feasible and ensure effective deployment of resources the grid can call on for the long-term.

A proposed incentive mechanism for bulk storage NYSERDA and DPS have come up with is called the Index Storage Credit. This would see a guaranteed strike price being set by NYSERDA, with project developers taking part in competitive solicitations.

Essentially, NYSERDA and the developer would agree a strike price, based on what NYSERDA models the resource’s stored energy to be worth, and based on what the developer or owner expects its project to be able to earn, on a monthly basis from market participation.

In a monthly period where the system earns less than floor revenues based on the strike price, NYSERDA payments would top up the difference. On the flip side, in a month where revenues exceeded expectations, the project stakeholders would pay the difference back to NYSERDA.

The scheme, Sandbank said, would help developers finance projects by giving them a stable, guaranteed income stream for the lifetime of NYSERDA’s contract, while asset owners would also be allowed to earn revenues from additional participation in wholesale markets.

NYSERDA wants to file Roadmap 2.0 by the end of this year. Then, pending community feedback and public comment periods, the regulatory New York Public Service Commission (PSC) would rule on it. It’s impossible to tell how long that might take, but Sandbank estimated that it could be in about Q2 or Q3 of 2023.

That means in roughly a year from now, a “NYSERDA-driven” bulk energy storage solicitation could be held, Sandbank said.

Speaking at a workshop session hosted by the International Battery Energy Storage Alliance (IBESA) at the California show today, the NYSERDA VP also noted that a need for around 21GW of short-duration, or interday, energy storage by 2050 has been modelled.

However, at some stage as that date nears, perhaps as early as 2030, at least a third of New York’s energy storage will need to be eight-hour duration or longer. However the exact need for long-duration energy storage (LDES) still needs to be assessed based on factors like the cost reduction trajectories of LDES technologies and how the adoption of hydrogen-based emissions reduction technologies progressed, Sandbank said. 

New York Governor Kathy Hochul recently announced US$16.6 million of funding for long-duration energy storage projects in the state, with a further US$17 million of funding available for companies to compete for.

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BloombergNEF energy storage analyst Helen Kou at IBESA’s workshop at RE+ 2022. Image: Andy Colthorpe / Solar Media

Supply chain constraints impacting the energy storage industry have come at a “critical” stage for the sector’s development, a BloombergNEF analyst has said.

Speaking at a workshop hosted by the International Battery Energy Storage Alliance (IBESA), at the RE+ 2022 industry event in California, BloombergNEF (BNEF) energy storage analyst Helen Kou said that supply chain problems could signal a 29% reduction in forecasted deployments in the US.

The forthcoming edition of the firm’s annual battery pricing reports confirms that the constraints have also been the main driver of “significantly higher” prices along the value chain found this year over 2021, Kou said. The situation is occurring at the same time as customer demand for battery storage grows.

“I think the industry is in this really critical period, where demand is actually kind of clear. A lot of utilities want batteries to put on their grid to help firm renewable [energy generation], but supply is actually quite uncertain,” Kou said in a presentation of some of BNEF’s key findings.

Causes of the issues are well documented and include logistical bottlenecks stemming from COVID-19 and raw materials price rises for lithium batteries.

Kou noted that, for example, some battery storage project components or systems had been shipped as long ago as April 2020, a few weeks into the pandemic, but have gotten caught up in the backed-up queues of containers at ports like the Port of Los Angeles, which had on average 84 ships a day waiting to unload at the height of the pandemic.

They “still have not made it onto the grid today in 2022, because of congestion and logistics constraints,” Kou said. However, the logistics situation, although likely to remain challenging for some time, is now showing some signs of easing, BNEF believes.

Likely to remain a much longer-term problem is raw materials pricing volatility, at least until much more lithium mining capacity comes online towards the end of this decade.

‘Pretty controversial question’

All components of the various subsystems that make up a complete energy storage system have seen inflationary cost rises and higher labour costs over the past few months, Kou said, but battery cells have seen the most increases in costs.

“This is really important because the battery cell is the largest cost component of an energy storage system,” Kou said, and the cathode is the highest cost component of the battery cell.

Price spikes for key cathode materials lithium carbonate, cobalt sulfate and nickel sulfate all affected the industry. Yet although supply constraints of the latter two have eased, the growing popularity of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for the electric vehicle (EV) sector as well as for battery storage, means lithium carbonate prices “will remain elevated for some time,” BNEF has forecasted.

The firm’s analysts are often asked a “pretty controversial question,” Kou said, namely: whether battery manufacturers were inflating their costs a little bit higher than would be commensurate with commodity price increases.

“After a lot of analysis, our conclusion is that it’s not likely the case,” Kou said.

There are apparently two main reasons for that. The first being that pricing varies heavily, depending on a manufacturer’s size, scale and company strategy. The analyst pointed to data on how greatly different cathode costs were recorded by Korean manufacturers SK Innovation, LG Energy Solution and Samsung in their quarterly filings. The other reason is that so-called ‘Cathode Production Premiums’ have decreased over time.

BloombergNEF was able to calculate what these premiums added on by manufacturers were worth using spot market prices for materials used in LFP and nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) cathodes.

In 2020, the Cathode Production Premiums averaged out at about 2.8, meaning that while it cost around US$10,000 to manufacture each kilogramme of LFP cathodes material, each kilogramme was then priced at around US$28,000 to the customer. As of July 2022, that premium had eroded to a factor of 1.3.

BloombergNEF’s revision to its forecast is broadly in line with that made by rival analysis group Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables, which recently said 2022 US deployments could be 30% less than previously expected. Alongside energy storage-specific supply chain challenges, Wood Mackenzie also pointed to the uncertain future of tariffs on imported solar modules, causing companies in the solar-plus-storage space to put some investment decisions on hold.

Wood Mackenzie does however think in spite of these challenges, total deployments could reach 13.5GWh for the year and more than 50GWh later this decade. As also acknowledged by BloombergNEF’s Helen Kou, it is clear there is demand for energy storage even with the challenging logistics and price dynamics.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed Senate Bill 1340, which extends the existing property tax exclusion for newly constructed, active solar energy systems by two years.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain delays have contributed to project delivery interruptions, including planned solar energy projects,” Gov. Newsom says in a statement. “That said, this policy has a direct impact on property tax revenues that support essential services at the local level. I believe this two-year, temporary extension strikes an appropriate balance between ensuring that these delayed solar projects are brought online quickly, while recognizing the impacts to local governments.”

“Further, this year’s budget included $300 million to create the Local Government Budget Sustainability Fund, which provides bridge funding to support county governments who are committed to advancing climate resilient projects that will bolster local revenues and contribute to long-term budget sustainability,” Gov. Newsom continues. “In signing this bill, I urge the legislature to consider the impacts to local agencies before bringing forward another extension of this policy.”

“Gov. Newsom’s signature on this two-year tax exclusion will help ensure solar and storage projects continue providing clean, reliable power to California at a time of unprecedented stress on the state’s electric grid,” says Rick Umoff, senior director and counsel for California at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “With incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, California’s solar market is expected to nearly double in size over the next five years to 61.5 gigawatts of electricity generation capacity. This growth requires tens of thousands of workers and billions of dollars of private investment, and companies now have near-term tax certainty to ensure these investments are made in the California communities that rely on a robust clean energy economy.

“The solar and storage industry thanks Senator Hertzberg and dozens of clean energy champions in the Legislature for recognizing the importance of this exclusion and getting it extended,” Umoff adds. “SEIA now turns its focus to securing a well-rounded energy policy in California that strengthens every sector of this critical industry.”

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Suvi Sharma

Independent power producer Silicon Ranch Corp. and solar recycling platform SOLARCYCLE are partnering to process end-of-life solar modules from Silicon Ranch projects through SOLARCYCLE’s advanced, high-recovery recycling platform. SOLARCYCLE’s approach to module recycling recovers approximately 95% of solar panel value, which can be returned to the supply chain and used to manufacture new panels.

With an operating portfolio of more than 145 solar power facilities across 15 states, Silicon Ranch is SOLARCYCLE’s first utility-scale partner. The partnership between the two companies will allow SOLARCYCLE to establish a model for recycling solar materials at the utility scale.

“As the long-term owner of every project in our portfolio, we at Silicon Ranch are deeply committed to our relationships and responsibilities in the communities we serve. These responsibilities include end-of-life equipment management,” says Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch’s president and CEO. “Embracing this opportunity to pioneer recycling and re-use processes at scale with SOLARCYCLE is a significant step in meeting these responsibilities. This partnership supports our commitments to advance domestic solar manufacturing, a circular solar economy, and economic development opportunities in communities across the country.”

“SOLARCYCLE’s team is taking what we learned in the solar, sustainability and recycling industries and applying it to our tech-driven recycling solutions. We know that scale matters in order to be able to drive costs down and bring quality up,” states Suvi Sharma, CEO and co-founder of SOLARCYCLE. “We are thrilled that our partnership with Silicon Ranch–an innovative leader in bringing solar to scale sustainably and responsibly–will help us make solar across America fully sustainable.”

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One of First Solar Inc.’s manufacturing plants

Azure Power Global Ltd., an independent sustainable energy solutions provider and renewable power producer in India, has entered into an agreement for 600 MW DC of high-performance, advanced thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar modules from First Solar Inc. The agreement is the first for production from First Solar’s new manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu, India, which is expected to be commissioned in the second half of 2023. Under the agreement, Azure Power is expected to take delivery of First Solar’s Series 7 PV solar modules from the fourth quarter of 2023 to 2025.

“We are pleased to partner with First Solar with their latest Series 7,” says Rupesh Agarwal, acting CEO of Azure Power. “Having a long-term agreement with global solar modules technology leaders like First Solar is key to de-risking our supply side with the latest technology available in the market.”

First Solar’s vertically integrated manufacturing facility, located near Chennai, is projected to have an annual nameplate capacity of 3.3 GW DC and is expected to produce a version of the company’s Series 7 modules that is optimized for the Indian market.

“Our relationship with Azure Power goes back over a decade and we are pleased that it is the launch customer for a product that has not only been designed for India, but made in India, for India,” states Georges Antoun, chief commercial officer at First Solar. “This deal demonstrates how experienced developers and independent power producers in India are increasingly taking a strategic view on procurement and securing long-term commitments that help tackle the risks of short-term pricing and supply volatility. When working with First Solar, they benefit from certainty of pricing and supply, and a technology that is advantaged in India’s operating environments.”

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Cindy Tindell

Matrix Renewables, the TPG Rise-backed global renewable energy platform, has secured a 4.6 GW portfolio of utility-scale solar energy projects across the central U.S. It has also signed a broader development joint venture with the projects’ original developer, SolarStone Partners. The two will jointly develop the 4.6 GW portfolio, while exploring and originating additional opportunities across different markets in the U.S.

“Matrix is very excited to partner with SolarStone in the further development of this portfolio and looks forward to our ongoing collaboration on new opportunities across the country,” says Cindy Tindell, managing director and head of U.S. business for Matrix Renewables.

“We could not ask for a better partner than Matrix Renewables to help SolarStone expand its U.S. utility scale renewables business,” adds Joe DeVito, CEO of SolarStone.

Matrix Renewables’ current portfolio is comprised of 2.3 GW of operational, under construction, or near ready-to-build solar PV, wind and storage projects, with a further 7.3 GW pipeline.

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APsystems, a multi-platform solar MLPE technology company, has unveiled the QT2 series, a four-module, three-phase microinverter product line for commercial, industrial and residential 3-phase solar applications.

The second generation of APsystems’ 3-phase quad microinverter, the QT2 comes in various models being launched in multiple global regions: 208Y/120V and 480Y/277V models in the U.S., 127/220V in Latin America, and 380V for Europe and Australia. The QT2 offers higher power output than the previous generation product; 1,800W (480V) and 1,728W (208V) in the U.S., and 2,000W in EU, LATAM and Australia markets.

The QT2 is ideal for use with four high-capacity commercial PV modules from 450W to 600W+, enabled with Reactive Power Control (RPC) and UL 1741 SA (CA Rule 21) compliant. With high DC input current support up to 20A, the QT2 has been engineered to pair with the highest-power modules available in the market today, including the 182/210 cell panels.

“The QT2 series represents a significant breakthrough in solar panel current and power, power density, conversion capability,” says Yuhao Luo, APsystems’ CTO. “This powerful capability combined with intelligent firmware, built-in rapid shutdown compliance, and fast installation makes this a truly unique product in the marketplace.”

The QT2 series continues to build on the APsystems line of multi-module microinverters, offering reduced logistics costs, faster installation, improved communication and connection features, and a wide MPPT voltage range for greater energy harvest during low light conditions.

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