Sungrow ST2752UX BESS unit, launched earlier this year. Image: Sungrow.

The energy storage division of solar PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow will supply battery storage equipment to Tata Power Solar for a project in Ladakh, India.

The battery energy storage system (BESS) will be “up to 60.56MWh” capacity and will be built at Phyang, a village in Ladakh’s Lei district close to the Pakistan and Chinese borders in the north of India.

Tata Power Solar’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) business was awarded the project through a tender hosted by the state-run Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI).

It is thought to include a 20MW solar PV plant, which will be effectively made into a 50MWac energy resource for the region with the integration of the BESS.

At the time the award was made in late 2021, it was one of the largest such projects tendered for by SECI. However it will be surpassed by another which has since been awarded to Tata Power Solar, a 100MW solar PV project with 40MW/120MWh of battery storage in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh.

SECI continues to tender for projects around the country. These to date have been for solar-plus-storage contracts, but in April the corporation launched a pilot tender for 500MW/1,000MWh of standalone BESS.

That tender has been described as a first of its kind for India, with BESS expected to be installed at two sites and connected directly to the country’s inter-state transmission system (ISTS) and expected to be followed by further tenders for a total of 4,000MWh capacity.

Tata Power Solar’s parent company Tata Power told Energy-Storage.news in December last year that there is “promising potential” for the energy storage industry in India, given the country’s strong ambitions for deploying renewable energy. The Union Government wants to install 500GW of solar and wind by 2030.

Sungrow said the Ladakh project will help support the local grid’s management of peak power. The company’s power conversion system (PCS) technology and its liquid-cooled BESS unit for utility-scale applications, ST2752UX.

The BESS can be AC-coupled or DC-coupled depending on the required configuration, has a maximum capacity per unit of 2,752kWh – hence the name – and was officially launched to the global market in March.

Energy-Storage.news reported a couple of months ago that the product will be used for a 16MW/64MWh project in Israel, together with Sungrow’s SC5000-UDMV PCS, for infrastructure solutions company Afcon’s project to increase operational efficiency at a 912MW gas plant. Sungrow also won a 430MWh supply contract with Israeli independent power producer Enlight for a two-phase project in the country.

In an interview earlier this year, Sungrow’s manager for the UK and Ireland said liquid cooling systems of the type used in ST2752UX were growing in popularity. Liquid cooling could come to dominate the market for new installations over HVAC-only cooling during 2022, Andy Lycett said.

On 22 June 2022, Energy-Storage.news and Clean Horizon will host a webinar explaining and analysing the current and future business models for energy storage in India, with guest speakers including Dr Rahul Walawalkar of the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) and Bharath Reddy from the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Sign up to attend, free of charge, here.

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Texas has over 45GW of renewable energy resources online, mostly wind, creating a big opportunity for storage. Image: Daxis/Flickr.

US utility Vistra has brought a 260MW/260MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) online in Texas, the largest in the state.

Vistra said yesterday (23 May) that the DeCordova Energy Storage Facility in Granbury, near Dallas, is online and participating in the wholesale energy markets on the ERCOT grid, the operator for the state.

The BESS is co-located on the site of the natural gas-fueled DeCordova Power Plant, operated by Vistra’s subsidiary Luminant. It will capture excess electricity from the grid, particularly overnight during hours of high wind production, and release the power in hours of peak demand.

It uses containerised lithium-ion batteries with 3,000 individual modules. Vistra has not revealed the supplier of the modules (it used LG Energy Solution for its Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility BESS, the largest in the world) but said that Sungrow supplied the inverters while engineering firm Mortensen provided “engineering and construction expertise”.

Jim Burke, Vistra president and chief financial officer, commented: “DeCordova offers a unique value proposition – not only can this battery system provide instantaneous full power to the grid with the flip of a switch, but it is also co-located on the same site as our quick-start DeCordova natural gas-fueled power plant.”

“This pairing means we essentially have a large, one-hour battery system with dispatchable, reliable generation, leading to continuity of operation and resiliency of the grid. In addition, these gas-fueled generation units have seven days of diesel backup in the event of any disruption of natural gas supplies, which is yet another example of the resiliency aspect of the DeCordova site.”

The DeCordova project was announced in 2020 by Vistra as part of a total 1GW of solar and energy storage planned by the company in the ERCOT market, as it prepares to retire 6.8GW of coal-fired power plants in Texas by 2027.

ERCOT is a completely decentralised energy market with no centralised capacity auctions like the UK’s Capacity Market or California ISO’s resource adequacy, meaning generators make all their money through energy trading and some ancillary grid services.

With some 45GW of renewable energy resources online in the state as of end-2021 according to American Clean Power, there is plenty of price volatility for BESS operators to capitalise on. Energy trading may be as much as half of BESS revenues now according to investor Gore Street Capital, while grid services like Responsive Reserve Service (RRS) and Firm Frequency Response (FFR) make up the rest.

Based on figures from ERCOT at the end of 2021, there is likely to be somewhere between 1,300-2,800MW of grid-connected storage in Texas at the time of writing. Although Vistra’s announcement mentioned the approaching hot Texas summer, it was the devastating winter storm of February 2021 that is talked about as a pivotal moment in demonstrating the role storage can play on the state’s grid.

Vistra is aiming to bring its zero-carbon portfolio to nearly 3,300 MW online by this summer and more than 7,300 MW by 2026, which includes Moss Landing in California. The company plans to expand the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility project from 1,600MWh at present to 3GWh, although it has had some problems with the plant since it went online in early 2021. Overheating in some modules took it offline a few months after inauguration.

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Enphase Energy Inc.’s Enphase IQ8 Microinverter system has been certified by UL, a global safety science company, to UL 1741, 3rd edition including the Supplement SB. This certification meets the new North American safety and grid interconnection standards for connecting solar inverters, energy storage systems and distributed energy resources (DER) to the grid in compliance with IEEE 1547-2018 and IEEE 1547-1 2020.

This new UL standard is used by testing agencies to demonstrate a product’s compliance with the IEEE standards. Enphase was actively involved in the development of the UL and IEEE standards and participated as a member of the committees that created the rules. The new standards introduce requirements for several advanced interconnection functions that will allow the grid to accommodate much higher levels of renewable DERs. One significant new capability, known as “interoperability,” standardizes the way in which utilities can communicate with and control DERs like solar and battery systems. Interoperability provides a crucial mechanism for DERs to be updated efficiently and cost effectively to better accommodate ever-evolving conditions on the grid.

“Enphase is pleased that our industry-leading IQ8 Microinverter system is the first product in North America to receive this critical certification from UL,” says Raghu Belur, co-founder and chief product officer at Enphase Energy. “Our close partnership with UL has allowed us to quickly reach compliance with all applicable North America safety standards. We selected UL as our global certification partner and our close working relationship with them has been invaluable in this effort. We look forward to further collaboration with UL to expand our innovative product offerings and help transform the grid.”

Enphase’s IQ8 Microinverters, paired with the IQ Combiner 4/4C and IQ Gateway, create a complete residential DER system certified by UL. Many states throughout the U.S. will soon require products to be compliant with these standards.

“We are at the start of a new era in which distributed energy resources, such as solar PV and battery systems, will become a foundational element of the way we think about electricity for our homes, buildings, and tools for utility use,” states Jeff Smidt, senior vice president of industrial testing, inspection and certification at UL. “With the Enphase IQ8 Microinverter as the first ever distributed energy resources product certified by UL to UL 1741, 3rd edition with the SB Supplement, Enphase has taken a significant step in helping advance the safety and security of reliable, clean, and smart energy available in the home or on the grid.”

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Shell has developed a hybrid power asset in the Netherlands consisting of a 50 MW photovoltaic power plant and a 50 MW wind farm.

In order to control and monitor this complex project, Shell worked with Inaccess, a control and monitoring solutions company for renewable energy projects. Building on their cooperation for utility-scale projects in Australia and the EMEA region, Shell and Inaccess will continue collaborating on a project pipeline in various countries.

The Unity system of Inaccess optimizes the operation of modern renewable power plants and portfolios encompassing photovoltaics (PV), batteries, wind and microgrids by offering low-level distributed control architecture and grid interaction, accurate data acquisition and scalability, and identification and evaluation cases of underperformance. It also minimizes imbalance costs and maximizes energy capture price.

Co-locating wind farms with solar assets provides more grid-friendly power. This pairing has the potential to transform renewable energy markets globally that are facing similar challenges with downtime for solar and wind assets with cold, wind months and hot summer months, respectively.

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ForeFront Power, a developer, advisor and asset manager for commercial and industrial-scale solar energy and storage projects, has partnered with Anheuser-Busch to develop solar energy systems at eight breweries in its craft business unit, Brewers Collective. ForeFront Power has now completed solar energy installations at Goose Island Beer Co. in Chicago, Ill.; Blue Point Brewing Co. in Patchogue, N.Y.; Virtue Cider in Fennville, Mich.; Breckenridge Brewery in Littleton, Colo.; Devils Backbone Brewing Co. in Lexington, Va.; Four Peaks Brewing Co. in Tempe, Ariz.; Karbach Brewing Co. in Houston, Texas; and 10 Barrel Brewing Co. in Bend, Ore. Combined, these solar energy systems total 2.4 MW DC.

“Many craft breweries are more than production facilities; they are now major tourist destinations and community hubs,” says Michael Smith, CEO of ForeFront Power. “On-site solar generation can not only substantially reduce utility costs, but also serve as a tangible demonstration of a brewery’s environmental stewardship and commitment to taking climate action. We applaud Anheuser-Busch for its clean energy leadership in the beverage sector, and it has been so rewarding for our team to help breweries across the U.S. achieve their sustainability goals.”

In Chicago, ForeFront Power installed a 377 kW DC rooftop solar array atop Goose Island’s Barrel House. The rooftop solar array will generate 484,000 kWh of electricity annually.

“Goose Island is proud to have completed a solar energy project atop our Barrel House,” states Todd Ahsmann, president of Goose Island Beer Co. “The ForeFront Power team helped make going solar a turnkey process, and we are pleased with our system’s performance, the utility savings it provides, and its positive contribution to our region’s climate goals. Goose Island is proof that if solar can work in the Windy City, it can work anywhere.”

At Long Island’s Blue Point Brewing Co., ForeFront Power installed a 217 kW DC rooftop solar array atop the brewery’s 54,000 sq. foot facility in Patchogue, N.Y. The solar project will generate over 285,000 kWh of electricity annually.

“Blue Point is surrounded by water and has always focused our sustainability efforts on protecting our waterways,” comments Nick Rosenberg, Blue Point’s environmental safety manager. “Becoming a solar brewery was the logical next step to fight climate change and lower our utility bills at the same time. We are thankful for ForeFront Power’s expert guidance through every phase of the project, from permitting, to installation, to construction and energization.”

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A 10MW BESS in Eisenach recently commissioned by ECO STOR for utility Verbund. Image: Markus Seemüller/ECO STOR/Verbund.

The German utility scale storage revenue stack for new projects has been totally reshaped by recent events and regulatory changes as the market moves to 100MW-plus ticket sizes, local developer ECO STOR told Energy-Storage.news.

This year, German utility scale energy storage projects will garner about half of their revenue from peak shaving with the rest made up of a mix of auxiliary (ancillary) grid services and intraday trading. That is according to Georg Gallmetzer, managing director of ECO STOR, a company which designs battery energy storage system (BESS) projects before selling when shovel-ready.

Peak shaving is a service where generators inject power during distribution system operators’ (DSO) peak quarter-hour demand loads, over the course of the year for which they are paid €50-100,000 (US$53-106,000) per MW/year. But the revenue stream will not be available for new energy storage projects commissioned after December 2022, Gallmetzer said.

“So value stacking for new projects from now on relies only on auxiliary services and short term trading, but the energy world has changed, fortunately. The prices on the auxiliary markets have increased and the spreads in short-term trading have multiplied. So the business model is now stronger, even including the increased material prices which have grown by about 30% in relation to last year.”

He added that investment decisions for ECO STOR’s current projects were made before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and recent commodity price increases, but that the profit opportunities of those projects have ‘increased dramatically’.

It is noteworthy that this is all happening as some of the early movers in the UK market, Europe’s largest, like Gore Street Capital and Anesco have recently entered or made concrete plans to enter the German utility scale storage market.

When asked to comment on these moves, Gallmetzer identified “pressure on land and grid access in their home market” as key drivers for the expansion.

“I think the UK is the wild west of land grabbing which has led to a situation of extremely high prices for project rights. It’s in the £100k (US$126k) per megawatt project right range which is enormously high, which is actually a little inhibitor for growth in the UK.”

Though not all UK projects trade at this price. Just today, Bluefield Solar announced a £56,000/MW project rights deal two months after a £75,000/MW one, covered in a separate Energy-Storage.news piece.

Part of the increased interest in German utility scale is also likely to be down to an increase in the size of new projects. The market has until now been dominated by smaller projects with the average utility scale BESS commissioned in 2021 standing at just 2.9MWh according to a recent study reported on by Energy-Storage.news.

That is starting to change. Essen-headquartered power generation company RWE expects a 72MW project, one of two totalling 117MW/128MWh, to come online in late 2022. Siemens and Fluence have announced a 100MW/200MWh project although an exact delivery date is not clear, while ECO STOR expects to commission a 100W/200MWh BESS in 2024.

“It will be the biggest in Germany but only for a short time, because many market players have similar plans,” Gallmetzer added.

“Large investors have been trying with small ticket sizes of investments and getting experience before scaling. Those ticket sizes are on the market and the experience with them is very positive.”

ECO STOR has a project pipeline under construction for delivery by the end of this year totalling 100MWh. The company is owned by Norway-based investment firms Agder Energi Venture and Klaveness Marine Holdings, Delph 25 and IGE (holding companies controlled by the founders of Covalis Capital), and company management.

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It is the solar-focused investor’s third storage deal. Image: Bluefield Solar.

London-listed solar and storage investor Bluefield Solar Income Fund has acquired two 40MW battery energy storage system (BESS) projects for £4.5 million (US$5.7 million).

Bluefield Solar has bought the development rights, grid connection and leasehold for the two standalone projects from Green Hedge Energy UK, an energy storage developer.

Construction on the sites, which are in Derbyshire and Worcestershire, is expected to start this year. Both are fully consented and benefit from near-term grid connections, Bluefield said in today’s (May 23) announcement.

John Rennocks, chairman of Bluefield Solar, commented: “Energy storage has a key role in supporting the decarbonisation of the electricity system in Great Britain. Once operational, it is intended the assets will be able to participate in a variety of valuable services to support the grid and to enable the Company to further diversify its revenue streams.”

Bluefield Solar Income Fund launched in 2013 but only began to diversify into energy storage last year. It started with the acquisition of colocated site in Lincolnshire in August followed by a 20MW standalone project in Liverpool in February this year, as covered by Energy-Storage.news‘ sister site Solar Power Portal.

All three storage deals by Bluefield have been project rights acquisitions with a 2022 construction date. February’s acquisition from Shaw-Energi equated to a price/MW of £75,000 (US$95,000) while today’s deal comes in slightly lower at £56,250 (US$70,000).

Speaking at Solar Media’s Energy Storage Summit 2022 in London in February, Bluefield Partners’ investment director Jan Libicek said there was an increasing focus in the market towards standalone storage, although colocation would always have the benefit of saving on capex (Bluefield Partners is the investment advisor to the Bluefield Solar Income Fund).

Figures from Solar Media’s UK Battery Storage Projects Database show that the proportion of the UK energy storage market that is colocated is going to increase over time based on the development pipeline. Less than 10% of operational BESS is paired with wind or solar compared to a fifth of the 38GW pipeline.

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Slate solar-plus-storage in California, which includes over 560MWh of battery alongside 300MW of PV. Image: GSRP / Recurrent Energy

Solar and energy storage were described by Elon Musk in a famous 2016 quote as going together “like peanut butter and jelly”. Andy Colthorpe meets some of the players creating this winning combination in the US.

This is an extract of an article which appeared in Vol.31 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes ‘Storage & Smart Power,’ a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news.

First, some quick stats: out of 10GW of battery storage additions planned for deployment in US utility service areas over the next two years —around 60% — is paired with solar, according to figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) released in March. Solar-plus-storage is becoming a massive part of the renewable energy market in the US. In Vol.28 of this journal, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) researcher Will Gorman noted that as of the end of 2020, there was about a gigawatt of solar-plusstorage in operation at 70 sites. Then, utility interconnection queues, Berkeley Lab found 160GW of solar PV being developed that was paired with batteries. Of course, not all of this will be built by a long shot and certainly given the challenges of securing interconnection some of it may not be built for several years, but clearly a lot will.

We spoke with four companies that are putting that metaphorical sandwich together in the field. Broadly speaking, they are active in two scales of solar-plus-storage: very large utility-scale power plants and smaller distributed generation projects.

Recurrent Energy – Lucas Moller

Lucas Moller is head of energy storage at Recurrent Energy, the US-based developer subsidiary of Canadian Solar. Recurrent develops large-scale plants, including Slate in California: 300MW PV with 140.25MW/561MWh of BESS, which the company sold to Goldman Sachs and came online in March.

“Solar-plus-storage for us to date in terms of executed projects is all California, is the case for most of the market. But, fundamentally, we look at all solar projects in our portfolio as potentially solar-plusstorage. That’s just our perspective on how we do project development and plan for future market demands — not today’s demands,” Lucas Moller says.

While it seems like solar-plus-storage has sprung up in California almost overnight, in fact it was developers like Recurrent taking that perspective early on which has made it so. Moller refers to Slate, the “star project of sorts”. Slate was conceived as a solar-plus-storage project from 2015 when interconnection plans were drafted up. Even further back, interconnection requests for solar projects filed by the developer in 2014 included storage. That “first flag planted” highlighted that the areas large solar projects were being developed in would have enough variable solar generation to need storage to shift energy into later hours sooner rather than later. While the economics didn’t pencil out for solar-plus-storage then, Recurrent knew they would before long.

“We look at all solar projects as solar-plus-storage projects. As it pertains to California, and [more broadly] the Desert Southwest US, there’s no such thing as a solar-only project anymore. There is pretty much a fundamental need to add storage to every project to make it economically viable.”

An IHI Terrasun solar-plus-storage project. Image: IHI Terrasun Solutions.

IHI Terrasun – Jamal Burki and Joonki Song

Jamal Burki is president and Joonki Song VP of marketing and supply chain management at IHI Terrasun Solutions. The full lifecycle services provider for solar-plus-storage is a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate IHI, currently working on the US$1.2 billion Gemini project in Nevada for developer Primergy.

With Gemini, a 1.4GWh, DC-coupled, solar-plus-storage, solar-only charging project, it’s really a milestone project that we’re working with Primergy on,” Jamal Burki says. IHI Terrasun is also involved with some of the smaller, distributed generation projects — including a recently completed project in New England ISO territory for Nexamp — and while these are worthy of celebration in their own way, solar-plus-storage on the sheer scale of Gemini, which charges from 690Mwac/966MWdc of PV, shows “how the industry has really come together,” Burki says.

The four-hour duration BESS at Gemini will provide solar time shifting, taking cleanly generated power into the evening peak.

Joonki Song says Gemini and projects like it show that the combination of solar and storage creates dispatchable power plants. They may not be 24/7 power plants, but they combine the two technologies to “provide consistent power from when the sun rises and capture energy when the solar generation is higher than the inverter limit and then smooth out in the afternoon”. Conversely, another large-scale project IHI Terrasun is working on, Leeward in California (72MW of PV with 36MW/144MWh BESS), is AC-coupled.

“It’s really more of a peak shaving and interconnect firming application and the customer is also planning to use that for voltage regulation,” Burki says.

Nexamp – Mark Frigo

Mark Frigo is VP for energy storage at Nexamp. Known as a leader in US community solar, based on the East Coast, the company is developing a wave of solar-plus-storage projects at a more distributed level in key markets like Massachusetts.

“If you’re in solar, you have to be in energy storage. They go together, like Yin and Yang,” Mark Frigo says. Nexamp has been around since 2007 and started ramping up its energy storage efforts two or three years ago, to the point where it now has 140MW of distributed solar-plus-storage or standalone storage in construction or in operations, largely in the northeastern US.

When asked if there may be a ‘one size fits all’ solution for US solar-plus-storage, the answer is “an emphatic no,” because depending on which state your projects are in and what opportunities they will target, the batteries can be solving different problems, Frigo says.

For instance, two Nexamp projects recently brought online in Massachusetts and paired with Nexamp community solar PV installations have four distinct revenues associated with them. “One, they’re part of a state programme called Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART). Two, they’re part of [another] state programme called Clean Peak. Three, they are a capacity resource and they are also a frequency regulation resource for the independent system operator, ISO New England.”

As Frigo describes it, there are only a handful of US states that have put in place incentives and programmes to move forward the progress of clean energy development and associated energy storage, Massachusetts, New York and California being prime examples. Outside of those leading regions, in the US market, there are generally two major drivers for solar-plus-storage. One is the ITC, which can lower the capex cost of the equipment by up to 30%.

The other option is in creating what Nexamp calls “a shaped product”, adjusting the shape of the solar generation curve to meet demand when most valuable, typically in the early evenings and at other peak demand times. By adding storage, instead of giving a customer a take-as-is type of power purchase agreement (PPA), generation is provided at different times based on the customer need.

Stem – Mary Cauwels

Mary Cauwels is VP of product marketing at smart energy storage technology and services provider Stem Inc. From a background delivering behind-the-meter batteries — and solar — for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers, Stem Inc is now also in energy storage procurement, integration and operations for distributed level solar-plus-storage, both in front of and behind-the-meter.

Focusing on Massachusetts, which targets net zero emissions by 2050, Stem Inc’s Mary Cauwels explains how the state uses the SMART programme in service of that goal. SMART pays a per kilowatt-hour rate for all solar production for a 20-year term.

Recently the administration of Governor Charlie Baker doubled its target to 3.2GW. It incentivises the addition of battery storage with stateprovided funds, paid by the utility to the project owner. Massachusetts’ Clean Peak Energy Standard meanwhile incentivises clean energy tech that supplies electricity or reduces grid demand during seasonal peak demand periods, as established by the state’s Department of Energy Resources (DOER).

Cauwels offers a simple revenue breakout of a solar-plus-storage system operating in Massachusetts. “We’re seeing about 34% of the revenues coming from the energy market. About 27% coming from forward capacity markets, 15% coming from real time reserves, 12% coming from clean peaks, and about 12% coming from frequency regulation. There’s a really interesting kind of spread across all these different value streams that solar-plusstorage is able to participate in.

All of this pushes in the right direction. Cauwels says it is important to recognise how far the clean energy movement has come with just solar alone in the past, and how much more will be done now energy storage has hit the mainstream.

This is an extract of an article which appeared in Vol.31 of PV Tech Power, Solar Media’s quarterly technical journal for the downstream solar industry. Every edition includes ‘Storage & Smart Power,’ a dedicated section contributed by the team at Energy-Storage.news.

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Atkore steelworker loading Nextracker torque tubes used on utility-scale solar power plants. Image: Nextracker

Nextracker LLC, a utility-scale solar tracker company, and Atkore, a global provider of electrical, safety and infrastructure solutions, are starting a new manufacturing line dedicated to producing steel tracker components for use in utility-scale solar power plants. Atkore has expanded and reconfigured its Phoenix, Ariz. facility with new capacity dedicated to Nextracker products.

This development follows Nextracker’s April announcement with JM Steel about opening a steel fabrication facility in Sinton, Texas.

“Building out our manufacturing capacity with partners across the U.S. allows us to protect customers from cost volatility, steel supply risk and delays in logistics,” says Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextracker. “Partnering with Atkore in Phoenix provides product in the epicenter of the Southwest’s rapidly growing region from a population and power perspective and ensures that best in class product is available to enable that demand to be served with clean, affordable solar power. Initial production from the expanded facility will support Arizona Public Service Co.’s (APS) 150 MW Agave solar project, which we are thrilled to be working on with other Arizona-based companies including McCarthy Building Companies and First Solar.”

“Atkore’s new production line is dedicated to Nextracker and will help them quickly deploy their cutting-edge solar technology across the Southern and Southwestern U.S.,” comments Bill Waltz, president and CEO of Atkore. “We’re proud to provide sustainable products that support renewable energy initiatives and help our customers achieve their goals – ensuring we deliver on our commitment to building better together.”

Through the partnership, Nextracker has a dedicated supply of critical materials in the strategic solar market of the Southwestern U.S. and is well-positioned to support to key customers such as APS.

“This expansion of manufacturing capacity with Nextracker and Atkore complements the solar program APS has been advancing for decades to serve Arizona’s growing energy demand. Advanced trackers help generate more clean solar power at a lower cost for customers.” states Ted Geisler, APS’ president. “Locally sourced solar trackers can help ensure on-time delivery, enabling us to maintain reliable service while keeping up with the rapid growth in our service territory.”

“It is very gratifying to be building high quality solar power plants for APS using best-in-class technologies like Nextracker’s advanced tracker that are now produced in Arizona,” mentions Scott Canada, executive vice president of renewable energy and storage for McCarthy Building Companies. “Nextracker responded strategically to the global supply chain crisis by expanding manufacturing capacity across the country. We have completed dozens of successful large solar projects with Nextracker and look forward to supporting the continued growth and job creation that the solar industry is bringing to communities from coast to coast.”

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Izzet Bensusan

Captona and South Jersey Industries have purchased their fourth acquisition through their Catamaran Renewables joint venture for a 5.66 MW solar and 5.2 MWh storage facility in Agawam, Mass. Prior to the acquisition, Catamaran’s portfolio included solar and fuel cell assets.

Catamaran Renewables acquired the Agawam Solar and Storage project from Consolidated Edison Solutions Inc., an energy services company. The facility has qualified for the Massachusetts SMART program – a tariff-based incentive program for eligible solar technology assets – ensuring a strong return on investment as the facility continues to provide clean power to over 100 C&I community subscribers in Western Massachusetts.

Catamaran is utilizing Captona’s internal asset management and engineering teams to manage the portfolio’s day-to-day operations. 

“Captona’s partnership with South Jersey Industries continues to push the boundaries of the energy transition as we add new technologies to our fleet. Investments in base-load technologies that promote grid stability and positively impact the community are at the forefront of Captona’s decarbonization mindset,” remarks Izzet Bensusan, Captona’s managing partner and founder. “We are excited for what 2022 has in store for our partnership as Catamaran continues to invest in and grow our renewable energy and clean fuel portfolio.”

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