NWA project pairs 15MWdc of solar PV with 10MW/40MWh of battery storage. Image: Convergent Energy + Power.

A hybrid power plant coupling solar PV with battery storage, built as a ‘non-wires alternative’ to more expensive network upgrades, has gone online in Upstate New York.

The New York town of Cicero is served by the Pine Grove substation in utility National Grid’s service territory. It has experienced congestion and electrical stress in recent years and more is expected as both demand for electricity and the growth of renewable energy resources continue.

Rather than building out the local transmission and distribution (T&D) network with power lines or new substations to accommodate or enable that, National Grid launched a competitive tender process in 2018, open to proposals for various kinds of distributed energy resources (DER) solutions.

The specified need was for 10MW of load relief up to 2031, with a maximum need for up to 49MWh per day, with summer peak load forecasted to exceed 100% of the Pine Grove substation’s emergency rating during this decade.

Developer Convergent Energy + Power’s winning proposal combines 15MWdc of solar PV with a 10MW/40MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). Convergent designed and built the project and will manage its operation.

The solar-plus-storage plant will increase the substation’s capacity cost-effectively, while increasing the amount of renewable energy used in the area. While National Grid’s regional subsidiary Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation will leverage the asset to manage peak demand, on days when it is not called into action for this purpose, Convergent Energy + Power will use it to participate in the wholesale electricity market.

It is one of just a small handful of US projects so far to utilise batteries as a non-wires alternative (NWA). Convergent Energy + Power built one of the first, as an alternative to US$18 million of T&D upgrades in Boothbay, Maine, completed in 2018.

In New York State, another developer, Key Capture Energy, completed a 3MW standalone BESS project in April 2018 for utility Orange & Rockland to ease congestion experienced due to load growth near a substation in Pomona.

Convergent Energy + Power’s new project received construction-to-term financing from NY Green Bank, as well as close to US$2.3 million from public benefit corporation NYSERDA through NY-Sun, a programme run to accelerate the deployment of solar PV in the state.

New York as a state is targeting reaching 57% renewables – including hydroelectric – by 2030 and net zero electricity by 2040, while it also has in place an energy storage deployment target of 6GW by 2030 to help it get there.  

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Powin Energy exhibiting at ees Europe / Intersolar in Munich earlier this month. Image: Solar Media.

Geoff Brown, CEO of the the world’s fifth largest battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator Powin Energy, discusses the company’s strategy for the coming years in an interview with Energy-Storage.news.

The Portland-based company had a 5% market share of the global BESS system integration market last year, according to IHS Markit. But it is one of only three in the top 10, along with Fluence and FlexGen, that is a pure BESS system integrator play and has to-date deployed over 2GWh of projects, mainly in the US. Last year, it was acquired by private equity firms Trilantic and Energy Impact Partners.

In this interview, CEO Geoff Brown discusses the company’s manufacturing strategy, diversifying its software platform to cover co-located storage sites, diversifying its supply chain away and Powin’s approach to non-lithium-ion chemistries.

Supply chain has become a big theme in the sector in recent quarters for obvious reasons, and the company has taken several steps to mitigate against constraints both near and long-term. This includes a large offtake agreement with Norwegian lithium-ion gigafactory strartup FREYR and moving its assembly production closer to the US through a deal with multinational electronics manufacturing services Celestica, in Mexico.

Energy-Storage.news: Talk us through the assembly production strategy and how many more manufacturing facilities you are planning to contract with, and where? 

Geoff Brown: Everybody has seen the logistics and shipping challenges over the last 18 months which have of course increased cost but also affected our ability to ensure on-time deliveries. Things are a lot easier when you’re able to basically eliminate the oceanic shipping transportations from finished goods to customers.

So we are looking at doing similar OEM manufacturing partnerships in other regions of the US to bring that final goods assembly closer to centres of demand. We’re not ready to announce where they might be but we’re actively involved in dialogues with multiple OEMs, including Celestica which has an international factory network that we would be able to leverage for some of our international projects. We expect 50% of our demand is going to be international by the middle of this decade.

How do you see your software platform evolving over the next few years? 

We really see a future where the hardware is sold part-and-parcel with the software. The nature of an energy storage product is that it is continuously dispatched and continuously monitored. The software platform therefore needs to have a best-in-class powerplant controller status system like we have with StackOS but also close inter-tie with the utilities, controls and operating network and automatic dispatch market optimisation algorithms which are all going to be a central part of that platform. 

I think we’re 50% of the way along that journey. We’ve got some really interesting partnerships in development that we’re not quite ready to talk about but that are really going to be a significant step forward for us on that side, as well as developing some of these capabilities organically. We have a very active and growing software team. 

Powin CEO Geoff Brown. Image: Powin Energy.

You can’t just think about it as an optimisation platform but also you need to think about the user experience for simple things like preventative maintenance, automated reporting and using data to make better decisions. 

Being a specialised battery storage solution provider is a plus but with the amount of storage pipeline that is co-located, doesn’t that software platform really need to cover other renewables too? 

I couldn’t agree more and doing that is absolutely part of the journey I mentioned earlier. We think that the future is a world where battery integrators like ourselves are not just selling a storage component of a larger system but we are the core provider of dispatchable renewable energy assets. 

So that could be a solar-plus-storage site controlled by a single power plant controller where the storage is used as the capacity component of the renewable resource. And there is an intelligent optimised power plant controller that both runs the power plant, runs the trackers, monitors the PV inverters, monitors the storage and storage PCS (power conversion system) in a way that best matches the desired use case of the investor and utility.

I think the way that it’s currently being done is relatively balkanised with too many different individual technology providers. It works, and it works well in most cases, but it’s a little bit clunky, and the companies that are going to lead this industry in the back half of this decade are going to be ones that are going to be able to integrate it into a whole platform.

Could you really achieve this in-house/organically alone? 

We’re evaluating all options but I would not necessarily agree that it’s a necessity to do it inorganically. A lot of the core capabilities that we have built to run our storage asset are directly applicable, both from a code base perspective and from an understanding and team capability perspective.

Tell us about your supply chain exposure to China and whether you have concrete aims to reduce this over time? 

From a numbers perspective, an overwhelming majority of the components assembled at our Celestica plant in Mexico are of non-China origin. But by far the most expensive component is the battery cell and for battery cells right now, there is one place on the planet to get lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries of any magnitude in terms of volume and that’s China, so we don’t have any other source for the next 24 months. 

But we are actively working both with our Chinese based OEM manufacturers to open manufacturing in other geographies as well as alternate cell suppliers that are working very hard to build robust cell manufacturing supply chains elsewhere. We just announced a super exciting partnership with FREYR for the back half of this decade for some very large volumes as they’re ramping up their manufacturing capacity. 

We’re in this business because we believe LFP and lithium batteries more broadly are going to be an essential, critical part of the world’s journey away from fossil fuels. I think already from a performance and a safety perspective, it is much better than the incumbent technologies and now it’s just a question of building the underlying manufacturing capability to allow that future to come into being. 

We are big supporters of diversifying the manufacturing base and big supporters of diversifying the raw material base. Importantly, it takes time. And I think the right approach is to engage support from multiple different geographies but continue to engage with China as a primary place because there’s a lot to do in just the next couple years and we’re really eager to be building these projects. 

How do you balance the need for your suppliers to have a strong track record with using new players from the US and Europe that maybe don’t have that track record? 

Obviously, there’s a big difference between new technology and new companies. I think one of Powin’s initial insights was that there are new chemistries and new variants of lithium-ion batteries that are in the market all the time but that there are also some very, very well understood tried and true chemistries LFP in particular whose safety and long term performance is well demonstrated. And the manufacturing process is well-understood and importantly not controlled by a single company. 

And so when we look at when we look at an individual cell manufacturer, they could be a relatively new incumbent but they could easily have a manufacturing process that we’re familiar with. We have both our team and through our consultant network an extended auditing capability to really understand the manufacturing base. We are eager to support, understand and engage with new companies that are using established chemistry. 

Powin has also invested significantly in our battery lab based here in Oregon. We want this to really be the premier independent battery testing facility, and I say independent because we work with lots of different cell manufacturers, and run their cells through a number of different capacity and degradation and other types of characterisation activities, understanding the safety of each of them, and that helps us to understand not only where we’re going to take our products, but also the direction and improvement in the overall science of batteries.

We are expecting that, just like you’ve seen in the PV space, there’ll be steady but significant improvement in the underlying capacity and performance of the batteries as all these manufacturers work to improve. And we want to be here to be able to help them along the way integrate it when appropriate into the utility scale product and really being able to, as leaders are identified, help to bring them to our customers. 

Powin’s modular Centipede BESS platform, which is being assembled at Celestica’s Monterrey, Mexico, plant. Image: Powin Energy.

You’ve mentioned a few times lithium-ion, but specifically LFP, being the best solution out there. Once we start to see increased durations would you consider other technologies too? 

Absolutely and that’s why I referenced the battery lab. That lab is sort of the tip of our spear as we start to engage with new companies and new product manufacturers. If the product is safe, and it performs, and we see that it’s really viable both from a performance as well as from an LCOE (levelised cost of energy) perspective then absolutely, why not? 

We take a really rational measurement-based market-driven approach to it. We try not to fall in love with a particular chemistry. We are not battery people, we’re power plant people and we want to bring the potential of lithium-ion chemistry to the utility-scale space and as the best chemistry changes so we’ll adapt our product accordingly. Currently, it’s pretty clearly LFP by a wide margin, so that’s why we’re LFP. I don’t expect I will be saying the same thing 10 years from now. 

Have you brought in any raw material index (RMI) pricing into your contracts to hedge against the price volatility we’ve seen recently? 

I’m not going to talk about our under NDA pricing with our customers. There are a lot of different ways that we’re working with both our vendors and our customers to mitigate the current commodity price increase. And some of them are indexed if that’s the right approach for all parties and if not, we have other approaches as well. 

Any other strategic priorities for the coming 3-5 years, and has any of this changed under the new ownership?

A lot has changed since the takeover, but I would argue our strategy has not changed in nearly five years. 

Powin is not a battery chemistry company, we are a platform company. We are focused on trying to build the best hardware and software platform that can deliver dispatchable renewable energy. It’s our job to continue to invest in the product, expand the platform’s capabilities to ensure we can deliver a comprehensive cell-to-system all the way to the largest utility and power plant developers. 

That means closer and closer involvement with power electronics and solar and wind, investments in software and usability, and continued investments in our service and maintenance capability. We think the best way to encourage and drive the energy transformation is through continuing to develop the best-in-class solution and at a very competitive cost point. 

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Local MP Adam Marshall (centre) at the site’s ground-breaking ceremony. Image: Office of Adam Marshall.

Progress is being made at one of Australia’s biggest co-located solar and energy storage projects, with the start of construction at the power plant’s 50MW battery energy storage system (BESS).

New England Solar Farm near Uralla, New South Wales (NSW), pairs the 50MW/50MWh (one-hour duration) BESS with a planned 720MW of solar PV. As reported by our sister site PV Tech, construction began in March 2021 and at the time was Australia’s largest co-located solar and storage plant to date.

It is part of a large Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) being built in the state’s New England region and received A$12.5 million (US$8.85 million) funding support from the NSW government under its Emerging Energy Program.

It was one of five Capital Projects awarded the funding, totalling 220MW and including Transgrid’s since-commissioned Wallgrove 50MW/75MWh battery project, CWP Renewables’ 30MW Sapphire Battery Facility, a hybrid battery-gas project and a 6MW virtual power plant (VPP).

From the total A$75 million set aside for the programme’s funding, so far a total of about A$47.5 million has been invested into part-funding Capital Projects, with a further A$10.1 million put into pre-investment studies for nine projects that include four large pumped hydro projects, another VPP, two standalone BESS proposals totalling 350MW and Hydrostor’s advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) project at Broken Hill.

The government said that as well as creating employment and adding reliable clean energy-based supply in the region, the programme will unlock around A$366 million in private investment.

In announcing the funding for the New England Solar Farm’s battery storage in August 2020, Member of Parliament (MP) for the local Northern Tablelands constituency Adam Marshall said the power plant, along with the other developments in the REZ, would make his district a major capital for renewable energy not just in New South Wales but for all of Australia.

“The BESS will be capable of dispatching energy to the grid at times of high demand, further progressing the region’s goal of becoming a net exporter of renewable energy,” Marshall said.

Marshall was among attendees at a recent ground-breaking event to kick off construction of the BESS, which will also help support the grid with participation in balancing services.

The project has been co-developed by UPC Renewables, a developer focused on the Asia-Pacific region and ACEN, the listed energy platform of Ayala Group, the biggest conglomerate holding company in the Philippines.

However, while the pair formed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) to work on clean energy projects in Australia, trading under the name UPC/AC Renewables, ACEN took its shareholding in the JV to 80% in March.

With that, the JV had a name change to ACEN Australia, and ACEN wants to buy out the remainder of UPC’s equity by the start of 2023.

The solar PV at the site is being built in two phases, with the first 400MWac/520MWdc phase expected to be completed next year. The BESS is being sited with the capability of expanding it to 200MW/400MWh, if market conditions make that economical, ACEN Australia’s CEO Anton Rohner said.

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Credit: HDR

Independent power producer Silicon Ranch and Nextracker LLC, a provider of intelligent, integrated solar tracker and software solutions, have signed a master supply agreement (MSA) to deliver 1.5 GW of Nextracker’s solar tracker technology to Silicon Ranch projects through 2024, with options to expand as Silicon Ranch’s portfolio grows.

The MSA represents the latest milestone in the long-standing strategic relationship between two solar businesses. The agreement includes a shared commitment by both companies to increase domestic supply and promote lower-carbon production processes.

“Despite severe disruption to global supply chains and other pressures facing the solar industry, Silicon Ranch remains committed to maintaining our 100 percent track record for successful project delivery,” says Reagan Farr, Silicon Ranch’s co-founder and CEO. “This agreement with Nextracker not only helps us keep our promises to our customers, but also enables us to decarbonize our supply chain and support additional investments in American manufacturing. We have grown our business through the power of collaborative partnerships, and we are thrilled to expand our relationship with Nextracker as we accelerate our growth strategy across the US.”

“We are so impressed with Silicon Ranch’s differentiated development model which exemplifies community engagement, and win-win solutions for ranching and agriculture to benefit from solar, not only financial investors selling power,” comments Dan Shugar, Nextracker’s founder and CEO. “We have listened to Silicon Ranch’s needs and modified our products to add more value to their applications. Connecting their demand to more domestic steel and manufacturing capacity results in more jobs with cleaner steel and optimized logistics.”

“Designing the best possible power plant – wherever our customers need energy – is crucial to Silicon Ranch’s mission and core values, and to do so we maintain consistent feedback loops with proven partners like Nextracker in an effort to advance robust designs and industry standards,” states Nick de Vries, Silicon Ranch’s SVP of technology and asset management. “Nextracker’s recent launch of the NX Horizon-XTR is the latest output of our collaboration, as this technology yields a smarter, more streamlined way to build solar on varied terrain, allowing Silicon Ranch to deliver high-quality solar projects and remain good stewards of the land at the same time.”

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Xcel Energy has selected Pivot Energy to develop a 41 MW community solar portfolio in Colorado, exclusively serving income-qualified households beneath an established income threshold. The eight projects are located across Boulder, Logan, Mesa, Morgan and Weld Counties.

By offering affordable community solar subscriptions to income-qualified households, Pivot Energy will be able to service groups that have historically been left out of the clean energy transition and that face many of the most adverse climate impacts. This community solar portfolio demonstrates how solar development can be leveraged to generate positive impacts beyond emissions reductions and environmental benefits.

“We are pleased to be working with Pivot Energy on this community solar portfolio,” says Emmett Romine, vice president of customer solutions and innovation for Xcel Energy. “Subscribing to these community solar gardens will bring energy-bill savings to our income-qualified customers and help them be part of the clean-energy transformation.”

The development of an income-qualified portfolio of this size is possible in Colorado because of the state’s renewable energy regulatory landscape, which is designed to address energy equity issues while fulfilling the public demand for a transition to clean, emissions-free energy production.

“I am proud to see Pivot Energy, a Colorado-based company, leading efforts to expand renewable energy access for low-income households,” comments Bill Ritter, a former governor of Colorado. “The clean energy transition will only be successful if it can provide clean, reliable energy for all of us, regardless of income, and developing a 100 percent income-qualified solar portfolio on this scale will support countless Coloradans.”

Pivot partners with community organizations in allocating subscriptions to those most in need and manages them through the SunCentral platform, their proprietary cloud-based software.

“Pivot Energy is thrilled to deploy this portfolio, which will deliver profound benefits – both environmental and economic – to thousands of income-qualified households,” adds Tom Hunt, CEO of Pivot Energy. “As the renewable energy industry strives to advance both energy equity and the clean energy transition, I hope to see other states and utilities emulate the leadership and constructive collaboration of Xcel Energy and the state of Colorado to facilitate more equitable access to clean energy.”

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Gateway, a 250MW BESS built by LS Power and now in REV Renewables’ portfolio. One of SCE’s five contracts is for an extension to this site. Image: LS Power.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved 497MW of energy storage procured by utility Southern California Edison (SCE) to come online from August 2023 through June 2024.

The CPUC, the state’s energy regulator, has approved five contracts for battery energy storage systems (BESS) that total 497MW of nameplate power and 1,988MWh of energy, each being a four-hour duration system.

The standalone lithium-ion BESS projects were procured by SCE under 15-20-year agreements through a ‘Fast Track’ process to ensure they are online by the aforementioned dates. See a table of all five below, which are a mix of new BESS projects and expansions to existing sites, like LS Power’s 250MW/250MWh Gateway, which was the largest in the world when it went online in August 2020 although has since been surpassed.

The five systems’ Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) is slightly lower at 462MW. In CPUC/CAISO nomenclature, ELCC is a measure of the amount of equivalent perfect capacity that can be provided by an energy-limited resource such as storage.

The five energy storage contacts. Image: CPUC.

The five BESS projects will contribute to SCE’s portion of the 11,500MW of clean energy capacity that the CPUC last summer ordered the state’s three big investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to procure for delivery between 2023 and 2026. The other two are SDG&E and PG&E.

Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma commented: “The 500 MW of storage we approved today, fast tracked by SCE, will significantly enhance our ability to manage reliability at net peak. These five energy storage projects are essential for our path to being less reliant on fossil fuels.”

BESS’ activity in the CAISO market

As Energy-Storage.news reported today in a separate article, CAISO passed 3GW of BESS connected to its grid in April this year. Those units are now load shifting as much as 6GWh of energy a day from earlier low-demand, low-price periods of the day peak demand, high price times of the day, though this is primarily gas-generated energy rather than renewables.

Buying and selling energy in the market is now the primary function of BESS projects in the state, whose frequency regulation market is small compared to the amount of storage it now has. Utilities use BESS units to provide energy to customers in line with resource adequacy (RA) requirements, CAISO’s means of ensuring load-bearing entities like utilities have enough energy to meet demand at any time (with a reserve margin).

Four of the five contracts approved today are RA-only contracts while AES Alamitos II has a ‘put option’ too. The four RA-only contracts mean the project developers have full control and responsibility for the BESS’ dispatch into the CAISO markets and only sells as much energy to SCE as it needs to fulfil its RA requirements. With the put option, AES can ‘put’ the dispatch and scheduling rights to SCE for a pre-set $/kW-month increment to the contract’s capacity price (explained in more detail in this CPUC document).

SDG&E targets BESS investments

In related news, fellow California IOU SDG&E recently filed its 2024-27 budget proposal to the CPUC, which contained several planned investments into energy storage. It said it will put money into modernising the electric grid with various technologies to enable the integration of renewable energy, including energy storage and EV charging infrastructure.

It also wants to install more utility-scale BESS projects at strategic locations to maximise the use of solar PV-generated energy and maintain a more reliable service to customers, as well as upgrade microgrids with BESS units.

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Still from drone video of Sandy Creek Solar Solar Power Plant

Duke Energy Florida’s first utility-scale solar power plant in Bay County is now operational and delivering power to the electric grid.

“Growing renewable energy in Florida is a top priority for us, and we are proud to complete the first utility-scale solar site in Bay County,” says Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida’s state president. “This project will play a major role in our state’s transition toward a cleaner energy future and demonstrates how neighbors, businesses and communities can come together to make meaningful impacts that will benefit Florida’s environment, energy system and electric customers.”

The Sandy Creek Solar Power Plant was built on 625 acres in Bay County, Fla. As the county’s first utility-scale solar power plant, the facility brings 74.9 MW of clean energy to the area and consists of approximately 220,000 single-axis tracking solar panels, capable of producing enough electricity to power approximately 23,000 homes annually at peak production.

The new facility is part of Duke Energy Florida’s commitment to provide customers with 700 MW of clean energy through the completion of 10 facilities by 2022. These 10 facilities are located throughout Florida, as far south as Highlands County and as far north as Hamilton County. Nine of the 10 facilities are now in service, while the remaining site in Hardee County is under construction and expected to be completed this summer.

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The American Clean Power Association has released its Clean Power Market Report Q1 2022, which shows that wind, utility-scale solar and battery storage sectors installed 6,619 MW of utility-scale clean power capacity – enough to power 1.4 million American homes. The record capacity is largely due to gains in battery storage installation, with storage installations up 173%, solar installations up 11% and wind installations down 3%, as compared to the first quarter of 2021.

While these gains contributed to a record first quarter for clean power installations, the rate of growth slowed to 11% in the first quarter of 2022, compared to the 50% year-over-year growth rate reported between 2019 and 2021. 

“The record-breaking quarter for clean power is encouraging, but the industry still faces many hurdles that are stalling growth,” says ACP CEO Heather Zichal. “Ongoing uncertainty from the Department of Commerce’s unwarranted solar tariff case, the unsettled fate of clean energy tax credits, supply chain issues and inflation are all making investment and planning decisions a difficult challenge. The industry needs resolution and policy clarity if we are to meet the Biden administration’s clean power goals of reaching a net zero grid by 2035.”

Cumulatively, operating clean power capacity in the country is now nearly 208 GW – enough to power 57 million homes in America. The 90 new projects added to the grid represent $9.3 billion in capital investments.

Growth in battery storage helped to propel the first quarter to record territory. Storage capacity additions grew 173% compared to the first quarter of 2021, while solar experienced more modest growth of 11% and wind declined 3%. The Q1 report shows 56 new utility-scale solar projects came online in 2021, for a total of 2,997 MW. 10 new wind projects came online, totaling 2,865 MW. Finally, the industry installed 24 new battery storage projects with a total capacity of 758 MW/2,537 MWh. 

While solar installations slowed in the first quarter of 2021 due to pandemic-related challenges in the supply chain, inflation, trade risks and lack of regulatory certainty, the industry is facing another significant obstacle as it looks beyond Q1 with the Department of Commerce’s inquiry into solar manufacturing in Southeast Asia.

This report provides an update on the Department of Commerce’s decision to initiate a review of a petition to apply anti-dumping and countervailing duties against solar module manufacturers located in Southeast Asia. ACP finds that the inquiry has had a chilling effect on the U.S. solar industry – both immediately and over the next two years. Prior to Commerce’s decision to initiate this inquiry, market researchers anticipated 17 GWdc of utility-scale solar capacity to be added to the grid in 2022 and nearly 20 GWdc in 2023. ACP’s market impact survey indicates at least 65% of the projected crystalline silicon (c-si) market across 2022-2023 is already at risk of cancellation or delay. The most common reason for delay or cancellation is lack of module availability. 

While the industry currently sits on a record volume of clean power capacity in the pipeline, the rate of growth of that pipeline is also slowing. The pipeline grew by just 4% during the first quarter – much lower than the 12% quarterly expansion experienced throughout 2021. There are almost 1,100 projects in the pipeline with a total operating capacity of 125,476 MW. This includes 40,522 MW of projects under construction and 84,953 MW in advanced development. 

In total, 14.8 GW of capacity has been delayed as of the end of the quarter. At the end of 2021, 11.7 GW of clean power projects experienced delays. Of that, 3,440 MW have since come online. However, an additional 6,576 additional MW of clean power projects experienced delays during the first quarter, bringing the total delayed capacity to 14.8 GW. Based on ACP’s analysis, on average these projects have been delayed by seven months.

Solar projects are the most prone to delays, with 8.6 GW of solar projects currently delayed. Solar accounts for 58% of all projects delayed and 60% of projects delayed that were expected online this quarter. These project delays occurred before the Department of Commerce initiated their review at the end of Q1, and the inquiry is expected to affect solar deployment through 2023. Wind makes up 31% of total delays in the first quarter of 2022, and battery storage makes up 11% of delays. 

Despite regulatory headwinds, solar continues to be the leading technology in the pipeline, accounting for 56% of all clean power capacity in development. Land-based wind accounts for 19% of the pipeline, offshore wind represents 14%, and storage claims the remaining 12%.

Texas represents nearly a fifth of the total pipeline (21,974 MW), followed by California (14,114 MW), New York (8,750 MW) and Virginia (6,439 MW).

The largest projects to come online in the first quarter include Traverse Wind Energy Center in Oklahoma owned by AEP and developed by Invenergy (998 MW) as well as Slate Solar+Storage in Kings County, Calif., which was the largest hybrid project (300 MW of solar capacity and 140 MW/561 MWh of battery storage capacity). Valley Center Battery Storage Project, owned and developed by Terra-Gen, in California has a 140 MW battery system with 560 MWh of energy storage capacity.

Power purchase agreement (PPA) announcements saw a significant decline, down 10% from last quarter and 15% from the first quarter of 2021. For the quarter, companies announced 6,339 MW of new PPAs. Corporate buyers were among those more hesitant to sign on to new clean power PPAs. Commercial & Industrial (C&I) offtakers announced 3,309 MW of new PPAs this quarter, a notable 46% decline from the first quarter of last year. According to LevelTen, PPA prices rose across all regions and technologies this quarter due to supply chain disruptions and increasing prices of commodities and labor.

The top corporate purchasers in the first quarter were Verizon (859 MW of new PPAs), The Markley Group (400 MW) and QTS Reality Trust (350 MW).

Utilities, on the other hand, increased PPA announcements by 53% compared to the first quarter of last year, with 2,513 MW announced. In total, 15 utilities announced PPAs this quarter. The highest involved the Salt River Project (581 MW), Great River Energy (400 MW) and Sacramento Municipal Utility District (350 MW). 

The first quarter saw significant activity in the offshore development sector. Louisiana announced an offshore wind goal of 5 GW installed by 2035 as part of the state’s first ever Climate Action Plan. To date, nine states have set offshore wind procurement targets totaling nearly 45 GW.

In February, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management held a lease sale for six commercial lease areas in the New York Bight with the potential to generate up to 7 GW of clean energy. The auction lasted three days and brought in $4.37 billion in federal revenue.

New York State broke ground on the 130 MW South Fork Wind Project as Ørsted and Eversource’s joint venture announced the approval of the final investment decision for the project, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2023.

At the end of March, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6865, the Coast Guard Authorization Act. Among many provisions, this bill would impose citizenship-based restrictions for crews on foreign-flagged vessels operating in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. ACP is actively engaging with the Senate and White House to prevent this policy from becoming law as it would seriously impede offshore wind deployment and progress toward the U.S. goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

Read the full report here.

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LG’s RESU 10H units were previously recalled, but other manufacturer systems are now thought to potentially be affected. Image: LG Energy Solution / SolarEdge.

Buyers of home energy storage systems in Australia have been urged to check whether batteries in their devices come from a batch recalled due to their risk of causing fires.

The recall by manufacturer LG concerns products made during 2017-2018. LG issued the recall in February 2021 and again in May 2021, but some 6,400 of a total 7,256 affected units have not been returned as yet.

The batteries were found to be at risk of overheating and catching fire and the regulatory Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is concerned that some affected customers may not be aware of the situation.  

LG said it has been able to remotely limit the State of Charge (SoC) of the systems to 75% of their capacity to prevent damage and has said it will replace batteries free of charge when replacements are available.

The potentially faulty equipment is used in LG Energy Solution’s own home battery energy storage systems (BESS) – although the brand was called LG Chem at the time of manufacture and sale – as well as products by other makers SolaX and Opal.

ACCC said nine incidents have been recorded in Australia and five in the US relating to the batch of LG batteries since October 2019. One case of a person being injured has been reported in each country, as well as damage to property in Australia.

Affected batteries still installed should be switched off, regulators recommended, advising that owners should consult the instruction manual accompanying their system or contact the manufacturer or their installer.

In August last year around 10,000 units of LG Chem RESU 10H battery storage systems in the US were recalled, manufactured at around a similar time by LG and imported by its subsidiary LG Energy Solution Michigan.

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued that second recall, after the first in December 2020 only identified about 1,800 units as likely being affected. US residential solar and storage installation and leasing company Sunrun which installs the 9.8kWh RESU home batteries for its customers said that about 5% of its entire energy storage installed base was affected by the December recall alone.

The state government of Western Australia issued its own notice about the latest recall last week, noting that roughly 450 of the total 6,400 affected systems across the country are installed there. The government statement noted that some of the potentially faulty batteries were likely installed as replacements as part of systems with other brand names, which in part prompted fears owners may be unaware.

SolaX, which supplied about 25% of the affected batteries, has already carried out its own recall notification – the company supplies SolaX and Opal brand storage systems – while the rest were installed by various companies including major energy retailers Energy Australia and AGL Energy.

Anybody concerned can see ACCC’s media release here, including a list of the 10 different models of battery system that could be affected and have been recalled.

Safety remains top of the list of priorities for industry

The recall reminder comes shortly after Energy-Storage.news heard at this month’s ees Europe trade event in Germany that safety has become perhaps the single biggest matter of concern for customers of battery storage systems.

Kai-Philipp Kairies, CEO of battery analytics company ACCURE said that while the risks can be reduced, managed or mitigated, it can be extremely damaging to confidence in the industry if they go unchecked and customers are not reassured. Kairies pointed out that Germany – one of the world’s leading regions for home battery sales – had experienced five fire incidents at residential systems in on month-long period this year.

LG Energy Solution modules were found to have overheated at the world’s biggest battery energy storage system (BESS) project, Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in California. Although it did not cause a fire, the incident is being investigated and led to the 1,600MWh project being taken offline as a precaution.

Another high profile incident which thankfully caused no injuries but damaged battery equipment was the fire at the 300MW/450MWh Victorian Big Battery in the Australian state of Victoria.

In that case, a Tesla Megapack BESS unit caught fire due to a coolant leak, investigators found, spreading to another 3MWh Megapack and destroying the two units. State safety regulators said they were satisfied lessons had been learned from that incident and the project resumed its testing, coming online a few months ago.

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Dragonfly Energy Corp is going public on the Nasdaq at a US$500 million valuation. Image: bfishadow / Flickr.

Dragonfly to go public via SPAC merger: “we are focused longer-term on grid storage”

Dragonfly Energy Corp, an energy storage company which has to-date focused on recreational vehicles (RV), marine and off-grid solar, is going public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

Dragonfly entered into a definitive business combination agreement with Chardan NexTechAcquisition 2 Corp on 16 May in a deal which values the resulting entity at US$500 million, with all existing Dragonfly shareholders rolling in their equity. It will list on the Nasdaq under the new ticker DFLI.

Dragonfly has created lithium-ion batteries equipped with a proprietary battery management system (BMS) that are currently used in RVs, marine vessels, material handling and off-grid residences and solar applications. But the company is keen to expand its penetration into the grid-connected residential and commercial & industrial (C&I) segments.

In an investor call about the transaction, CEO Dr Denis Phares said: “It is worth noting that our future aspirations are not related to electric vehicles. We are focused longer-term on grid storage. We want to make a storage battery that will facilitate the adoption of a smart grid, with a battery deployed in every home or business, on or off the grid.”

Part of this is a new all-solid-state battery technology it has developed in-house, which it said has the characteristics needed for grid-connected storage like low manufacturing costs, long cycle life and non-flammability. It aims to start cell manufacturing of this product line on US soil in the next 12-18 months.

In 2021, Dragonfly Energy Corp had revenue of US$78 million and adjusted EBITDA of US$8.7 million. The company will use the proceeds from the transaction to accelerate the market penetration of existing products and commercialise its solid state battery.

California ISO passes 3GW of grid-connected battery energy storage

In its Key Statistics report for April 2022, the California ISO (independent system operator) announced that 3,059MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) is now installed on its grid.

The figure is 13-14% higher than March 2022’s c.2,700MW of installed capacity, meaning some 460MW of new BESS was added to CAISO’s reported data. A big chunk of this may have come from the 182.5MW/730MWh BESS at utility PG&E’s Moss Landing substation which was commissioned at the start of the month.

The grid operator expects to have around 4,000MW online by summer 2022. At the end of April, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved another 1.6GW of BESS projects from PG&E to come online from 2023-2026.

April also saw a new record set for the amount of load served by renewable energy sources at 99.87%, at 2.50 pm local time on April 30. The previous record of 97.6% was set at the start of the month.

PowerX raises US$32 million in first half of Series A

In another piece of marine energy storage news, Japanese startup PowerX has raised a 4.15 Billion JPY (US$32 million) in the first half of its Series A.

It will use the money raised to establish a domestic gigafactory assembling batteries to power its Power ARK, a battery storage vessel that would charge from offshore wind and then carry the power back to land. It will also increase its R&D efforts and grow the team from 30 currently.

The gigafactory, Power Base, will also assemble batteries for grid projects and EV fast chargers, the press release said.

Investors that took part in the first part of the Series A are Spiral Capital, Nippon Gas, Imabari Shipbuilding, NYK Line, Mitsui & Co., MUFG Bank, BEMAC Corporation, Japan Airlines & Translink Innovation Fund, Tokyo Century Corporation, Mizuho Capital and Future Creation Capital.

PowerX is hoping to replace fuel carrying ships which today import fossil fuels to Japan, providing almost 85% of the country’s power, and around the world.

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