The battery energy storage system in Tonga. Image: Akuo corporate video screenshot.

French renewable power producer and developer Akuo Energy has commissioned a 29.2MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Tonga, several weeks after powering up a 19MWh project in Martinique.

The Tonga 1 and Tonga 2 storage systems are on Tongatapu, the main island in the archipelagic South Pacific nation, and connect to the grid of public operator Tonga Power Limited.

The two total 16.5MW of power and 29.2MWh of energy making this the largest BESS in the South Pacific, Akuo said. Both individual systems comprise Akuo’s Storage GEM modular containerised solution, three for Tonga 1 and five for Tonga 2.

Tonga 1 is a 9.3MW/5.3MWh designed to improve grid stability, with a duration of just 34 minutes. Tonga 2 is a 3.3-hour system with 7.2MW/23.9MWh of energy, designed primarily for load shifting.

They have already allowed Tonga to double its renewable energy capacity with the recent addition of 6MW in solar PV power, bringing the country’s renewable mix to around 20%. It aims for 70% by 2030.

The BESS also demonstrated its resilience during a tsunami in January which devastated the coastline and cut the country off from the outside world. The BESS continued operating and helped stabilise the grid in the days following the natural disaster.

The two projects totalled US$53 million in investment, of which 56% was from the UN’s Green Climate Fund, 23% from the Asian Development Bank, 10% from the Tongan government, 6% from Tonga Power and 5% from the Australian government.

Largest storage system in Martinique

The announcement comes a month after Akuo commissioned a 19MWh BESS on the French overseas territory of Martinique in the Caribbean, although the press release said its contractual effective volume is 12MWh.

The Madina Storage facility also uses Akuo’s Storage GEM containerised solutions and is a lithium-ion-based BESS (Akuo didn’t reveal the chemistry for the Tonga facility).

The BESS connected to the island’s grid, operated by French state-owned energy company EDF, will enable greater penetration of renewable energy. It will provide load shifting capabilities as well as grid frequency regulation services in the event of a sudden loss of power.

French commercial bank Groupe BPCE was the facility’s banking partner while listed investment firm Methanor provided it with equity financing.

Eric Scott, chairman and co-founder of Akuo, said: “We are very proud to put this storage facility into service, proof if it were necessary of the key role this technology plays in power networks’ performance and of its complementarity with the production of renewable energy.”

Akuo was founded in 2007 by the founders of Perfect Wind after they sold their entire wind portfolio to Spanish multinational electric utility Iberdrola. The company won solar tenders on French overseas territories last year and has invested €2.8 billion (US$3 billion) for a total capacity of 1.4GW renewabele energy capacity (operational or in development).

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Enphase Energy’s products being exhibited at Electrical Energy Storage (EES) / Intersolar Munich last week. Image: Cameron Murray / Solar Media.

Microinverter and home energy storage system supplier Enphase Energy has “relatively good availability” of its products despite high demand in the current supply chain environment, its marketing director for Europe told Energy-Storage.news.

In response to a question about supply chain issues during an interview at Electrical Energy Storage (EES) / Intersolar Munich last week, Peter Halmans, marketing director Europe said: “Although the demand for our products is extremely high, we still have relatively good availability of our products. We have become experts in planning very well and because of that thorough planning, we are able actually to supply our customers at this moment with what they need in the markets. We recently announced we will open a factory in Romania too to ensure we are even closer to our customers.”

That’s not to say the company isn’t feeling supply chain constraints, as its CEO Badri Kothandaraman said when it released its strong Q4 2021 results, which saw IQ battery orders jump 53%.

“Our lead times for batteries are still long today at approximately 14 to 16 weeks primarily due to logistics challenges, which are global,” Kothandaraman said while discussing results with analysts in February.

The company, which primarily sells microinverters that convert DC power from solar PV panels to usable AC power for homes, launched an energy storage system in 2015. See Energy-Storage.news’ interview with its co-founder at the time.

When asked why going into storage made sense for Enphase, Halmans said: “We’re on the road to becoming a company that is strong in managing the energy of homes. So we help consumers to transfer sunshine, for example, into usable energy for the house. And it’s logical that you want to do something with that energy source, right? You want to store it somewhere and reuse it the moment you really need it. So that’s why the batteries have been a logical next step for us.  

“It’s also the next step to adding other functionalities to our portfolio and to our cloud-based solution which will enable consumers to manage their households’ energy, and to be a leading company in the electrification of households. We are extremely focused on residential storage with maybe a bit of small commercial, and our customers love that focus.”

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Trina Storage Elementa modular cabinet. Image: Trina Storage corporate video screenshot.

Trina Storage, the energy storage division of solar PV manufacturer Trina Solar, has formed a partnership with solar inverter manufacturer Power Electronics to jointly deploy battery storage.

The vertically-integrated Chinese PV company – a member of the ‘Solar Module Super League’ of major manufacturers as coined by our colleagues over at PV Tech – said today that it will deploy over 1GWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) installations by the end of 2023 which are integrated with Spain-headquartered Power Electronics’ PCSK inverters.

The two companies signed a letter of intent (LOI) for the agreement to carry out the deployments jointly at last week’s Intersolar Europe show in Germany.

At the event, Trina Storage was showcasing Elementa, its grid-scale BESS solution and launching it officially to the mainland European market, although it has already been used in a successfully commissioned 50MW BESS project in Cambridgeshire in the UK.

The company said a US launch is coming soon.

Elementa is a fully-integrated and modular solution designed for easy plug and play installation. It features a standardised design equipped with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells and liquid cooling technology. Trina Storage is currently building out 3GWh of annual LFP cell production capacity at facilities in China.

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Gabriela Bunea

GAF Energy, a Standard Industries company and solar roofing provider in North America, has promoted two executives: Gabriela “Gabi” Bunea to chief solar innovation officer and Ralph Robinett to senior vice president of manufacturing and deployment. The company recently launched its Timberline Solar line. Developed and assembled in California, Timberline Solar is a solar roofing system to directly integrate solar technology into traditional roofing processes and materials.

“Execution in innovation and manufacturing are critical to taking residential rooftop solar from a niche product to reaching our vision of energy from every roof,” says Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy. “Gabi and Ralph have proven their determination, leadership, and ability to deliver industry-changing products. They have been essential leaders on the team that brought the award-winning Timberline Solar to market. I’m thrilled to continue working alongside them and our entire team to transform more and more roofs into solar roofs.”

Bunea brings 20 years of extensive technical experience and leadership in the solar and microelectronics industries to GAF Energy, most recently as vice president of research, development and deployment at SunPower Corp. Prior to that, she held multiple roles managing module research, development, deployment and product design at SunPower, and previously worked as a member of the technical staff in the microelectronics division at Lucent Technology.

Before joining GAF Energy, Robinett held senior leadership positions in global operations, manufacturing, engineering and quality in the solar, electronics and semiconductor industries. Most recently, he was vice president of operations at Celestica. Prior to that, he was vice president of operations at SunPower Corp.

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A still photo taken from Indigenized Energy Initiative’s video about White River Community Solar Project

Indigenized Energy Initiative (IEI), the Native-led nonprofit that aims to empower Native American communities with the skills and resources to deploy the clean and regenerative power of solar, has been selected by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe to develop the White River Community Solar Project. The project will include residential, small commercial and a 1 MW utility-scale system for a total of 1.25 MW of solar photovoltaic systems across the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is providing $3.2 million in funding for the project and requires the Tribe to contribute 20% in matching funds. IEI is taking the lead in securing the matching funds by June of 2022 by seeking project sponsors and donors for this important project.

Located in the heart of the coal development region of Eastern Montana, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe has remained steadfast in their resistance to fossil fuels. In 2016, The Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council passed a resolution to pursue renewable energy. The White River Community Solar Project represents the first step the Tribe is taking to generate all of its own energy from renewables while also creating jobs and driving economic development.

“Solar energy offers us a chance to regain our independence and stop reliance on fossil fuels,” says Kyle Alderman, renewable energy manager for the Northern Cheyenne Tribe. “We’re excited to work with IEI, a Native-led initiative committed to energy sovereignty and to honoring the social, economic, spiritual, and environmental concerns of Indigenous Americans.”

IEI will partner with Red Cloud Renewable, a Lakota Sioux-based sustainability education and training organization, to design and deliver specialized training programs for Tribal members, which will equip them with the job skills to build these projects.

Three types of solar projects will be built as part of the White River project, including one large array in Busby that will be shaped in the pattern of the Morning Star; three smaller systems to offset electricity used at the Busby High School, a Head Start facility and a water pumping station; and 15 residential solar systems to benefit Tribal elders.

“Part of the White River Community Solar Project plan includes building residential solar systems at the homes of Tribal elders – each carefully selected by the Tribe as deserving and in need,” explains Otto Braided Hair, Jr., co-founder of IEI. “This will reduce energy costs for our Tribal elders and some of the systems will include batteries that provide emergency power to homes where elders are dependent on medical equipment that requires electricity.”

“The White River Community Solar Project is a major focus of IEI’s fundraising efforts this year,” comments Cody Two Bears, co-founder of IEI.

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Rendering of Energy Vault EVx energy storage system concept. Image: Energy Vault.

Gravity-based energy storage company Energy Vault added US$191 million to its existing cash reserves when it listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in February.

The Swiss-American startup is developing a novel energy storage technology based on gravitational energy. Although it had previously said shortly before listing that it hasn’t yet perfected its grid-scale energy storage system (ESS) product, EVx, the company said more recently that construction work has begun on a 25MW/100MWh project in China.

According to its quarterly financial results which it announced a few days ago, a licensing agreement from Atlas Renewable  –  a US company specifically set up to create connections between the US and Chinese renewable energy industries – drove Q1 2022 revenues of US$42.9 million.

Versus a GAAP net loss of US$20.1 million largely relating to the cost of its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital Corporation II, its GAAP operating income was US$20.8 million for the quarter.

Its transaction with Novus Capital which took the company public included US$50 million private investment into public equity (PIPE) commitments from each of Atlas Renewable and Korea Zinc. Energy Vault ended the quarter with US$303.5 million cash and cash equivalents.

Energy Vault also noted that it is in discussions with Indian state-owned power producer NTPC and Enel Green Power regarding possible deployments in India and the US respectively. An 18MW/36MWh project in Texas with Enel is expected to break ground in September, the company said.

It is also developing software solutions under its energy management platform division to which it has appointed energy storage and cloud computing industry veteran John Jung as head and also made a number of key executive and advisory board hires over Q1.

“We made significant progress on our growth strategy this quarter as we signed several new agreements and MOUs with world-class customers who also chose to make large investments in Energy Vault, including with Korea Zinc and Atlas Renewable, which expanded our footprint in Australia and China, where we broke ground on our first EVx deployment in March 2022,” CEO Robert Picconi said.

The company expects to make further announcements on deployments for EVx and its software platform Energy Vault Solutions in the US, China and Australia during 2022, Picconi claimed.

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EnerVenue’s energy storage solution. Image: EnerVenue.

Pine Gate Renewables has signed a second long-term supply memorandum of understanding (MOU) targeting an alternative to lithium-ion this week, with nickel-hydrogen battery group EnerVenue.

Just two days after signing an MOU with Urban Electric Power to deploy up to 4.5GWh of its zinc-based batteries over a similar timeframe, Pine Gate has today (May 19) announced the deal with California-based EnerVenue.

Pine Gate said it will deploy up to 2.4GWh of EnerVenue’s nickel-hydrogen-based battery energy storage systems(BESS) at utility-scale sites across the US.

EnerVenue only launched in 2020 and has said it wants to ‘disrupt’ energy storage with a 2-12 hour duration system with “virtually unlimited number of cycles”, its CEO told Energy-Storage.news when it launched.

“EnerVenue batteries offer a differentiated value proposition – lower degradation across a widetemperature band, and lower cost for maintenance and augmentation, whilst posing no fire or thermalrunaway risk. These batteries also have a stackable form factor and can last for more than 30-yearswhile being able to cycle multiple times a day,” said Raafe Khan, Director of Energy Storage at PineGate Renewables.

Pine Gate has 1GW in operational assets and a 16GW pipeline across the US. Energy-Storage.news has asked the company whether it anticipates it will fully exercise both the MOUs – which total just shy of 7GWh – and for which use cases it plans to adopt each respective technology.

Both technologies have several use unique use cases. Zinc batteries are carving out a sweet spot in data centres, for example, as written in a recent guest blog on this site, while EnerVenue’s battery is ideal for remote microgrids in harsh climates because it can withstand more extreme temperatures than lithium-ion.

“Pine Gate Renewables excels at launching and operating renewable energy and energy storageprojects, and is an ideal partner for deploying EnerVenue’s innovative battery systems,” said RandySelesky, Chief Revenue Officer, EnerVenue.

EnerVenue raised US$100 million in a Series A funding round in September last year from investors including Schlumberger New Energy, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and Stanford University.

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The UK’s first subsidy-free solar PV farm, Clayhill, was built with co-located battery storage. Image: Anesco.

Co-located storage is likely to grow as a proportion of the UK market with 7.2GW of projects in the pipeline, but structuring deals and offtake agreements presents a complex challenge according to a project developer.

The pairing of solar or wind with storage is at a fairly early stage in the UK. Less than 10% of its 1.7GW of operational battery energy storage systems (BESS) is co-located with wind or solar, totalling 158MW. And most existing co-located storage projects have two separate grid connections with a limited amount of shared infrastructure.

But there are 317 projects totalling 7.2GW co-located with solar or wind in the development pipeline, around one fifth of the total (figures from Solar Media’s UK Battery Storage Projects Database).

Project developers are increasingly looking at developing sites which share grid capacity but this presents a myriad of complex challenges including structuring offtake agreements, as our source – an employee with a senior management responsibility for energy storage at a major international renewables and storage developer – explained, speaking anonymously.

Grid connection queue

“Obviously, you need the import capacity for battery storage. That’s a bit of a challenge, because retrospectively adding import capacity to your existing grid application might put you further back in the queue, which is not a good position to be in,” they said.

“In order to maximise the return on investment of a co-located project the battery needs to pursue various revenue streams which depend on grid import capacity. Let’s say you have already a PV project in development and have a grid connection offer. Then you want to add storage and request additional import capacity. Depending on the DNO and specific connection this could significantly delay the connection date and increase the amount of forecasted curtailment. So you need to be well aware about how to approach this topic”. 

SPV structure

The second question when developing a co-located project is deciding how to structure the deal into special purpose vehicles (SPVs), complicated by the fact you have two assets plus a grid connection, as our source explained.

“There are basically two options: you can have the grid connection, solar and storage all in one single SPV which allows you to optimise the plant more holistically by for example saving capex on infrastructure and technology equipment and also to charge the battery from solar. Or, if you want to have potentially two different owners for PV and battery you would probably have three SPVs. One grid SPV which provides capacity to the PV SPV and the battery SPV.” 

Co-location with wind (pictured) is likely to become more prevalent in future in the UK as the market’s priorities shift to more energy-based applications. Image: Fluence.

Offtake agreement

But the offtake agreement is the really complicated part, our source explained, and above all needs to be as simple and de-risked as possible for the future long-term owner.

“You’re combining the traditional utility world of five or 10 year power purchase agreements (PPAs) for the PV with AI algorithm-based fully automated trading and bidding strategies brought by small startups for the BESS and the question is how to work that out,” they said.

“From the project SPV legal entity perspective, you don’t want two independent contracts which then have to fight for the grid connection and then if something goes wrong finger pointing starts, right? From the long term owner’s perspective, this is not attractive. So you need to find a way that responsibilities and all what-ifs and potential risks are very clarified and minimised.”

“Ideally, you have one party who gives you one contract offering both; is in-house capable of giving you a long term fixed PPA price, with the according balance sheet or credit worthiness to back this, but also is able to do the fancy new AI stuff with batteries to create revenues on the flexibility side.”

This combination at least in the UK market is somewhat rare, they added, and so you typically need to find a combination of players who offer a combined contract. Energy-Storage.news has recently interviewed some of the main BESS optimisers out there like Habitat Energy and Flexitricity that take assets into market on behalf of their clients.

Our source: “There are in general two main options: you can go and pick your two preferred parties from both worlds and have them working together on the same grid connection. They then also need to have to establish agreements between each other.”

“One key risk to deal with here is what if one of the two parties falls away which obligations and interests does the other party have to engage with a replacement party as quickly as possible to ensure you don’t have a stranded asset? It might look less risky to have a single route to market provider who takes on both PV and storage, but then you are potentially not able to pick the best of both worlds.”

Most co-located storage projects pair with solar PV as wind requires much more cycling and also a much larger battery. Anesco has delivered several large co-located projects while BayWa r.e. acquired projects from Harmony Energy and JBM in April 2022 and July 2021, respectively.

Co-location with wind could come in a few years when the market moves more towards energy trading, our source added. Some 80-85% of BESS revenues are still from grid ancillary services according to Gore Street Capital, one of the leading investors in the market.

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Solargis has provided its high-resolution, granular resource and meteorological data to leading U.S. independent power producer Apex Clean Energy. The data has been deployed to optimize over 120 of Apex’s solar projects during design, development, and operations – while enabling projects to better integrate advanced technologies such as bifacial and storage.

Through their partnership, Solargis has provided Apex Clean Energy with accurate one- and five-minute data to support seamless battery operations and better grid integration.

“As the technological complexity of solar assets increases, high quality resource data becomes more essential every day,” says George Szabo, director of solar design at Apex Clean Energy. “Apex strives to create tangible value for every project, and Solargis – with the lowest GHI model uncertainty and interannual variability when paired with our ground-monitoring stations – has enabled our team to do so.”

“Rising transparency around crucial project decisions means U.S. renewable investors are scrutinizing financial projections rigorously,” states Giridaran Srinivasan, Solargis’ CEO for the Americas. “We have been consistently impressed by Apex Clean Energy’s robust data use of high-quality data and commitment to accuracy over the two years we’ve worked together, and we look forward to supporting the wider U.S. solar sector as it takes a leap forward and adopts a best practice approach to solar resource data.”

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Secretary-General António Guterres said combating climate change should be a major global peace project of the 21st Century. Image: UN.

As the global climate crisis unfolds, António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, has highlighted the crucial role battery storage can play in tackling it.

Guterres issued a stark warning yesterday concerning the “dismal litany of humanity’s failure to tackle climate disruption” in a speech in which he set out “five critical actions to jumpstart the renewable energy transition”.

Speaking at the launch of the World Meteorological Organisation’s State of the Global Climate 2021 Report, Guterres described the global energy system as “broken” and “bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe”. He called on the world to “end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the renewable energy transition, before we incinerate our only home”.

Guterres proposed five critical actions to jump-start the renewable energy transition. The first of these was treating renewable technologies such as battery energy storage systems (BESS) as “essential and freely-available global public goods” by “removing obstacles to knowledge sharing and technological transfer”, including intellectual property constraints.

“Storing renewable electricity is often cited as the greatest barrier to the clean energy transition,” said Guterres as he called for a global coalition on battery storage to fast-track innovation and deployment.

The speech was delivered on the same day the European Union published its draft proposal for RePower EU, its plan to reduce and then end dependence on fossil fuels imported from Russia. The plan includes some mention of energy storage, but has stopped far short of the coherent strategy and deployment targets many had hoped for.

To read the full version of this story, visit PV Tech.

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