Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have created a solar cell with a record 39.5% efficiency under 1-sun global illumination. This is the highest efficiency solar cell of any type, measured using standard 1-sun conditions.

“The new cell is more efficient and has a simpler design that may be useful for a variety of new applications, such as highly area-constrained applications or low-radiation space applications,” says Myles Steiner, a senior scientist in NREL’s High-Efficiency Crystalline Photovoltaics (PV) Group and principal investigator on the project. He worked alongside NREL colleagues Ryan France, John Geisz, Tao Song, Waldo Olavarria, Michelle Young and Alan Kibbler.

Details of the development are outlined in the paper “Triple-junction solar cells with 39.5% terrestrial and 34.2% space efficiency enabled by thick quantum well superlattices,” which appears in the May issue of the journal Joule.

NREL scientists previously set a record in 2020 with a 39.2% efficient six-junction solar cell using III-V materials.

Several of the best recent solar cells have been based on the inverted metamorphic multijunction (IMM) architecture that was invented at NREL. This newly enhanced triple-junction IMM solar cell has now been added to the Best Research-Cell Efficiency Chart. The chart, which shows the success of experimental solar cells, includes the previous three-junction IMM record of 37.9% established in 2013 by Sharp Corporation of Japan.

The improvement in efficiency followed research into “quantum well” solar cells, which utilize many very thin layers to modify solar cell properties. The scientists developed a quantum well solar cell with unprecedented performance and implemented it into a device with three junctions with different bandgaps, where each junction is tuned to capture and utilize a different slice of the solar spectrum.

The III-V materials, so named because of where they fall on the periodic table, span a wide range of energy bandgaps that allow them to target different parts of the solar spectrum. The top junction is made of gallium indium phosphide (GaInP), the middle of gallium arsenide (GaAs) with quantum wells, and the bottom of lattice-mismatched gallium indium arsenide (GaInAs). Each material has been highly optimized over decades of research.

“A key element is that while GaAs is an excellent material and generally used in III-V multijunction cells, it does not have quite the correct bandgap for a three-junction cell, meaning that the balance of photocurrents between the three cells is not optimal,” comments France, senior scientist and cell designer. “Here, we have modified the bandgap while maintaining excellent material quality by using quantum wells, which enables this device and potentially other applications.”

The scientists used quantum wells in the middle layer to extend the bandgap of the GaAs cell and increase the amount of light that the cell can absorb. Importantly, they developed optically thick quantum well devices without major voltage loss. They also learned how to anneal the GaInP top cell during the growth process in order to improve its performance and how to minimize the threading dislocation density in lattice-mismatched GaInAs, discussed in separate publications. Altogether, these three materials inform the novel cell design.

III-V cells are known for their high efficiency, but the manufacturing process has traditionally been expensive. So far, III-V cells have been used to power applications such as space satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and other niche applications. Researchers at NREL have been working toward drastically reducing the manufacturing cost of III-V cells and providing alternate cell designs, which will make these cells economic for a variety of new applications.

The new III-V cell was also tested for how efficient it would be in space applications, especially for communications satellites, which are powered by solar cells and for which high cell efficiency is crucial and came in at 34.2% for a beginning-of-life measurement. The present design of the cell is suitable for low-radiation environments, and higher-radiation applications may be enabled by further development of the cell structure.

NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for the Energy Department by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC.

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A render of the two-hour BESS. Image: Maoneng.

Renewable energy developer Maoneng has received grid connection approval on its 240MW/480MWh Mornington Peninsula battery energy storage system (BESS) in the Australian state of Victoria.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has given Maoneng grid connection assessment approval to connect the standalone BESS to the Tyabb substation in the southern part of the state, operated by listed energy company AusNet.

The project received development approval in January, as reported by Energy-Storage.news, and should be completed in early 2024. It will cost around AU$190 million (US$133 million).

It will primarily provide load shifting capabilities to the local grid, drawing and storing energy during off-peak periods and dispatching when demand is high. It was recently revealed that energy trading had shot up to 49% of revenues for BESS projects in Australia in Q1 2022, from 24% in the same quarter last year.

“The Mornington BESS is really coming together. We now have the assessment approval as well as the development approval, for an asset that will support the Victorian Government’s objective of improving regional electricity reliability,” said Maoneng co-founder and CEO Morris Zhou.

The state of Victoria has become something of a hub for energy storage recently, including Australia’s largest battery that came online in December 2021, while Maoneng has been one of the most active in developing large-scale projects across the country.

In October it got development approval for a 450MWh BESS in South Australia and more recently proposed a huge 1,600MWh BESS in New South Wales.

Federation acquires majority of Riverina BESS project

The Mornington approval comes a few weeks after Federation Asset Management acquired a majority interest in three BESS projects totalling 300MWh from Edify energy.

The projects come under the umbrella name of Riverina Battery Projects. They are 60MW/120MWh Riverina Energy Storage System 1, 65MW/130MWh Riverina Energy Storage System 2 and the 25MW/50MWh Darlington Point Energy Storage System, also all in New South Wales.

They will all use Tesla’s Megapack system and are due to be completed towards the end of 2023 or early 2024. Edify will manage the construction and commissioning of the BESS project and will act as asset manager throughout its operational life.

Shell Energy, part of the oil and gas major, signed a long-term services agreement for operational rights to Riverina Energy Storage System 1 in May last year to help service its long-term retail contract with the New South Wales government.

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Feldheim, Germany, is a village which already uses a combination of wind, solar and biogas with battery storage to cover all of its energy needs from renewables. Image: LG Chem.

Europe’s policymakers appear to have a blind spot when it comes to energy storage and its role in the transition away from fossil fuels.

While climate change remains the major existential crisis of our times, there is also an immediate crisis facing the European Union’s energy sector: its reliance on Russian fossil fuel imports.

REPower EU, the policy strategy which largely targets the end of dependence on Russia for fuels and has been in the making since March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was published in its draft form yesterday by the Union.

In contrast to a leaked version of the draft which Energy-Storage.news was able to see last week, the proposal does include some explicit mention of the role of energy storage, as noted in our coverage.

However, it is likely to still fall short in ambition, given the vagueness of its treatment of the various technologies – it says the EU recognises the importance of electricity storage and will encourage its development, for example, but does not go into specifics in the way that it does for say, solar PV or hydrogen.

We hear from Patrick Clerens, secretary general of the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE), a tireless and longstanding advocate for energy storage in all its forms, why a coherent strategy to enable a massive rollout of energy storage is required to enable the rapid growth of renewable energy.

As noted in our news story last week, EASE and its members have modelled the need for energy storage in the European system and found that 190GW will be required by 2030, equivalent to 14GW a year of new installations, in a market that installed less than a gigawatt during 2021.

It has to be said that at last week’s ees Europe trade event in Munich, Germany, and in wider conversations with various industry experts and participants, Energy-Storage.news has heard optimism on the prospects for the energy storage industry in Europe. However, this growth in market-based demand does not yet correlate to the massive push forwards that EASE and many others say needs to come from strong policy leadership.

EASE and other groups have made an urgent call for the inclusion of energy storage in the RePower EU plan. Energy storage, whether electrochemical, mechanical or thermal, has been absent from discussions to date and is not covered in detail. Why is this so important?

In RePower EU, the main aim is to wean ourselves off Russian gas, to limit Russian gas imports, and in the midterm to diversify completely away. That’s a decision of the European Commission.

They also see that we have a lot of indigenous energy sources, which are renewable energy sources, and we’ve seen that these sources are being curtailed. Now the commission is calling for more renewables, but we know that the grid cannot flow (due to congestion). So, it’s not possible at the same [required] speed.

The only way we see to make this happen is to have a massive rollout of storage devices to avert curtailing.

The way renewables were rolled out was very clear. There was a target set for renewables, there was a support mechanism put in place to achieve these targets, and this rolled out renewables, reduced prices and created an environment of suppliers, of researchers, for it [the industry] to have its own infrastructure around it.

We need to go to the same level for energy storage: we need to set targets, we need to make sure we can achieve those targets. And these targets must be based on the rollout of renewable energy.

A lot of studies for the moment talk about storage only being needed in 2040.

But there are two flaws to these studies. The first flaw is that they rely on gas peakers to balance the system, all of them. The European Commission had foreseen 80% of balancing coming from gas in their own assessments. So that’s not working anymore, we don’t want this anymore. And it’s not fitting with the higher [decarbonisation] targets.

And that’s the second part: the EU’s Fit for 55 plan targets 55% carbon emissions reduction by 2030, higher than the previous 50% target. It doesn’t seem a lot, this 5%, but the low hanging fruits have been used, every percentage point is more painful now. So, it is a huge challenge to get this 5% more. You therefore need to avoid a curtailment of renewable energy sources, to increase the consumption of renewable energy sources.

While curtailing renewables, you will not manage to achieve the targets. Using gas peakers you will not achieve to on one side reduce CO2 emissions and [on the other side] wean us off imported gas.

We are speaking to each other at ees Europe, the electricity storage trade show, which has grown immensely in the past few years, just as the Intersolar Europe PV show did before it. Do you think this lack of inclusion for energy storage is just a reflection of the earlier stage of development that the industry is still at? Or is there fundamentally something missing from the approach of EU policymakers?

If you have an energy system which is projected to not need storage, you don’t need to push it. But now, since this shift happened, we see that we need storage, and we are lacking the mechanism to roll it out.

And we need to create a comprehensive energy storage strategy on a European level with the EU Member States. Look at the National Energy and Climate Plans and see how storage can be pushed up there. That’s really what you [need to] do, have a comprehensive integrated strategy on energy storage. Without this we will not meet the target for the renewables, we will not manage to wean ourselves off imported gas.

Green hydrogen: essential, but complementary rather than competitive with energy storage in the EU’s decarbonisation toolkit. Image: Cameron Murray / Solar Media.

We are seeing some momentum for growth in European energy storage, although as you say, not on the level that’s needed. Recently we’ve seen Greece set an ambitious 3GW by 2030 deployment target, and financial support for storage in Bulgaria, unlocked through EU funds for economic recovery post-pandemic. Is that something that works best for markets at an early stage of development and where do you see the role of the EU and policy-driven funding versus support for unlocking market mechanisms?

It will be both of those going hand in hand to be honest. We have on one side, the need to create products. So, for example, avoiding curtailment. You can create a market product saying, “If you store wind energy to avoid curtailing it, we will pay you per megawatt-hour you store and make available” and give it a business case.

If it’s a longer-term contract, like the four-year contracts for enhanced frequency response (EFR) awarded in the UK in 2016, then it would create investment security and pull in investors. You need to create some products to get the market going.

On the other side, we see that we need support, to roll it out, to create trust, to show that it’s working on larger scale, because we’re lacking multi-megawatt sizes, I mean tens or hundreds of megawatts-sized storage devices.

We need this, because we have in our energy system a need for flexibility which can be provided by interconnecting demand side management, and also by storage. To replace the peaking plants, we also need to shift energy.

There’s a need in our system for flexibility and energy shifting and this energy shifting part can only be done by energy storage devices, which are electrical in a bi-directional way, meaning electricity in and electricity out. You can store it within potential energy like pumped hydro storage, you can use electrochemical storage, different types of batteries, of course lithium-ion, but also for bigger quantities of energy, flow batteries or other types of batteries. We need obviously to also store it in mechanical means, so compressed air, liquefied air and other technologies. We can also store electricity in heat storage.

The [market] challenge there is that as soon as you go to big energy shifting over longer terms, it’s like a shop: what produce I get in and can sell, the more money I make if I fill my stock. If I sell my produce only once a week, then I make less money. It’s the same with storage devices.

If I fill my storage device, and I empty it only once a week, there’s no cycling, there’s no revenues. We need to find mechanisms on how to make this available.

The Portuguese Secretary of State for Energy João Galamba, said that security of [energy] supply, is a public obligation, that it’s a public good. He was implying that this could be tendered or subsidised from public finances, because we need the security of supply, and we see that if we don’t have it, we’re in really bad shape.

There are discussions which are starting which show there are different possibilities on how to do it and we have the EU Innovation Funds and other funding for the moment, like the (post-pandemic) Recovery and Resiliency Facility. So, we have money available, which can be used, which is huge. But we need also products to reflect the need to say: “We need at least strategic reserves on storage”.

In contrast, hydrogen plays a big role in the RePower EU plan, which calls for a target of 10 million tonnes of domestic renewable hydrogen production and 10 million tonnes of imports by 2030. The EU appears to recognise that hydrogen will be best used to replace natural gas, coal and oil in hard-to-abate industrial sectors and for transportation. Why couldn’t green hydrogen be used for that electricity storage application?

Hydrogen is storing energy, but it will not in my opinion be transformed in the near future into electricity again. It will be used to decarbonise industry, because they need green hydrogen, it will be used to decarbonise difficult-to-electrify transport, like intercontinental flights.

So, for heat storage, where you take electricity to put it in heat or to decarbonise the heating sector, roughly 50% of the energy is consumed for heating and cooling homes. So, all of this will provide flexibility by either putting on the electrolyser or switching off the electrolyser, by putting on the demand side response or not, but that’s not helping to provide electricity in moments of need.

There’s no single application for one technology, there are different applications, depending on the use case, and the moment and efficiencies and this should determine the mix.

If you have no other means, this (hydrogen) is the cheapest means of storage for weeks and months. But when you turn it back into electricity, you lose a lot. Of course, we have an energy crisis, so we must take the most efficient products. So in my opinion, we need that hydrogen to decarbonise industry that we electrify, that otherwise can’t be done.

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JA Solar has released its first n-type PV module DeepBlue 4.0 X. Based on the 182 wafer, the DeepBlue 4.0 X series includes three module types adaptable to any scenario: 54-cell module for residential PV systems, and 72-cell and 78-cell for commercial and utility-scale PV projects. DeepBlue 4.0 X has already passed the IEC 61215 and IEC 61730 tests and obtained the TÜV SÜD certificate, as well as passed the salt mist, ammonia, sand and dust testing, proving its suitability across various applications and environments.

In addition to the advantages carried over from DeepBlue 3.0 modules, DeepBlue 4.0 X integrates the latest technologies from JA Solar, including the Bycium+ cell, wherein mass production efficiency can reach more than 24.8% owing to its high-quality substrate and structure. Also, DeepBlue 4.0 X is equipped with the patented high-density module encapsulation technology GFI (gapless flexible interconnection), where the design of the round ribbon with buffer treatment and optimized encapsulation material deals with mechanical stress at cell interconnections and thus eliminating the risk of micro-cracking. Together, these bring higher reliability and higher energy yield to DeepBlue 4.0 X, with maximum power reaching 625W and efficiency of up to 22.4%.

According to Kun Tang, director of the product technology department at JA Solar, JA Solar has been working on the n-type technology for years, and after continuous investment in R&D and experimentation, is finally ready for mass production. To verify the power generation performance of the product, JA Solar and TÜV NORD launched a one-year (February 2021-February 2022) energy yield test at China Photovoltaic Test Center, Yinchuan base (Northwest China). The results show that the energy yield of the n-type module based on Bycium+ cells is 3.9% higher than that of p-PERC modules. According to JA Solar PV system simulation data, compared with p-type modules, BOS cost reduction of DeepBlue 4.0 X tops out at 2.1%, and LCOE at 4.6%, further increasing the IRR and bringing more value to the customer. “The development of low-carbon and green solutions has become a key global mission,” says Xinwei Niu, member of the board and senior vice president of JA Solar.

“As one of the most flexible and cost-effective renewable energy, PV power has become an important force in promoting carbon neutrality. From p-type to n-type, from DeepBlue 3.0 to DeepBlue 4.0 X, JA Solar has always adhered to the product design concept of ‘customer oriented’. We are always trying to improve the power generation performance of PV modules in order to create more value for customers and promote the application of PV power at a global scale to play a greater role in the process of global carbon neutrality.”

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Utility Tampa Electric Co. (TECO) has purchased, installed and received regulatory approval for Emera Technologies’ BlockEnergy microgrid platform for use in a pilot program serving Southshore Bay residential development, a community south of Tampa, Fla. The solar-plus-energy storage microgrid, fully owned and operated by TECO, enables increased operability, security and grid resilience to mitigate extreme weather and other events that can impact electric utility grid uptime. BlockEnergy microgrid also provides TECO with a cost-effective way to offer a distributed clean energy resource to its Southshore Bay customers and to quickly advance its vision to achieve a net-zero carbon future.

The Southshore Bay residential community, developed in partnership with home builder Lennar Homes and land developer Metro Development Group, is comprised of 37 new homes all equipped with fully integrated, shared rooftop solar PV systems. Each home has a battery storage and power electronic control system, or BlockBox, which connects to the neighborhood distribution network, where it communicates and shares energy as needed within the community. A central energy park is located near the entrance of Southshore Bay, containing supplemental batteries, optional additional generation for use during outages and a connection to the electric utility power grid.

With this utility-owned business model, homeowners still pay for electricity at the same metered rate as they normally would, with no extra grid charges or other fees. By being part of the BlockEnergy network, up to 80% of their home energy comes from the sun without having to hire a solar contractor to install a rooftop PV system, go through the permitting and interconnection process, and then operate and maintain the system.

“We are continually striving to find new ways of bringing smarter, cleaner and more reliable energy to our customers,” says Dave Pickles, vice president of electric delivery of Tampa Electric. “The BlockEnergy microgrid pilot project is a promising solution that brings a new layer of control, operability and flexibility. It’s one that can directly benefit our customers and help us to realize our net-zero vision.”

“We developed our BlockEnergy utility-owned business model with the charter to find a win-win solution for utilities, homeowners and regulators to offer clean, reliable energy to homeowners,” states Rob Bennett, CEO of Emera Technologies. “We are excited TECO is leading the way by adopting BlockEnergy for Southshore Bay and providing a model residential community that other utilities can learn from, follow suit, and continue to make the necessary changes we need for a cleaner, more grid-resilient future.”

After two years of pilot testing and optimizing the platform at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico – in collaboration with Sandia Laboratories – BlockEnergy received approval from the Florida Public Service Commission for Southshore Bay as a four-year pilot project. The Tampa Electric news also comes on the heels of Emera Technologies’ recent UL 9450 fire and safety certification for the energy storage control system integrated with the BlockEnergy platform.

“We are looking at sustaining infrastructure and ensuring mission readiness in a way that is safe, secure, reliable, and cost-effective,” commens Colonel David Miller, the former commander of Kirtland Air Force Base. “The Emera project is right in line with what we are trying to do. This also positions us as a leader in helping the state of New Mexico meet 2045 renewable portfolio standards, while testing an innovative and practical approach to energy surety and resiliency.”

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Timothy Sparks

Consumers Energy has agreements to add 300 MW of clean energy from two Michigan solar projects being developed in Genesee and Hillsdale counties. Both projects are being developed by Ranger Power, a utility-scale solar development company based in Chicago. The solar developments are part of the company’s Clean Energy Plan to dramatically increase renewable energy, eliminate coal electricity by 2025 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.

“Providing 300 MW of clean energy for our customers is a commitment to our planet, the people of Michigan and contributes to the prosperity of communities where solar projects are sited,” says Timothy Sparks, Consumers Energy’s vice president of electric grid integration. “We are pleased to reach this agreement with a valued partner that is helping us bring to life a vision to provide a clean energy transformation that benefits Michiganders, both current and future generations.”

Consumers Energy would purchase power from Confluence Solar in Genesee County and Heartwood Solar in Hillsdale County. The agreements are being reviewed by the Michigan Public Service Commission.

The new solar projects are each 150 MW and scheduled to begin operating by year-end 2024. Ranger Power will own and operate the sites.

“Securing power purchase agreements with Consumers Energy for our Confluence and Heartwood Solar projects is a major milestone in our efforts to provide clean, renewable energy to customers across Michigan,” states Paul Harris, president at Ranger Power. “We’re glad to be expanding our partnership with Consumers and continue to be guided by a community-first approach as we complete both solar projects.”

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The European Commission has presented the REPowerEU Plan, its response to the hardships and global energy market disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is a double urgency to transform Europe’s energy system: ending the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and tackling the climate crisis.

The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is at the heart of the REPowerEU Plan, supporting coordinated planning and financing of cross-border and national infrastructure as well as energy projects and reforms. The commission proposes to make targeted amendments to the RRF Regulation to integrate dedicated REPowerEU chapters in member states’ existing recovery and resilience plans (RRP), in addition to the large number of relevant reforms and investments which are already in the RRPs. The country-specific recommendations in the 2022 European Semester cycle will feed into this process.

A massive scaling-up and speeding-up of renewable energy in power generation, industry, buildings and transport will accelerate independence, give a boost to the green transition, and reduce prices over time. The commission proposes to increase the headline 2030 target for renewables from 40% to 45% under the Fit for 55 package. Setting this overall increased ambition will create the framework for other initiatives, including a dedicated EU Solar Strategy to double solar photovoltaic capacity by 2025 and install 600 GW by 2030. A solar rooftop initiative with a phased-in legal obligation to install solar panels on new public and commercial buildings and new residential buildings. Doubling of the rate of deployment of heat pumps, and measures to integrate geothermal and solar thermal energy in modernized district and communal heating systems.

Other commission recommendations include tackling slow and complex permitting for major renewable projects, and a targeted amendment to the Renewable Energy Directive to recognize renewable energy as an overriding public interest. Dedicated ‘go-to’ areas for renewables should be put in place by member states with shortened and simplified permitting processes in areas with lower environmental risks. To help quickly identify such ‘go-to’ areas, the commission is making available datasets on environmentally sensitive areas as part of its digital mapping tool for geographic data related to energy, industry and infrastructure.

Delivering the REPowerEU objectives requires an additional investment of €210 billion between now and 2027.

Read more details on the plan here.

Image: Photo by Andreas Gücklhorn on Unsplash

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Electrify America has entered into a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with developer Terra-Gen to build a solar photovoltaic renewable energy generation project in San Bernardino County, Calif. called Electrify America Solar Glow 1.

The new solar project is expected to generate 75 MW per hour at peak solar capacity or an estimated annual production of 225,000 MWh. It is projected to produce enough 100% renewable energy annually to more than offset the energy currently delivered on an annualized basis to Electrify America’s customers charging on its extensive network. The solar project is targeted to be operational by mid-2023.

Electrify America is purchasing and retiring all bundled environmental certificates associated with the new solar project over a 15-year period, shifting away from the business-as-usual approach of buying environmental certificates from a third-party supplier on an unbundled basis, which does less to support additional renewable energy generation.

“Electrify America’s business model – and purpose – have always been at the forefront of efforts to reduce emissions through enabling electric mobility,” says Giovanni Palazzo, president and CEO of Electrify America. “Our commitment to customers and to a sustainable future go hand-in-hand, which is why we are investing in renewable energy generation to commit to a net-zero carbon footprint associated with the energy delivered to our customers.”

Electrify America’s first solar project in the Southern California Mojave Desert may also be expanded at the option of Terra-Gen to include a co-located battery energy storage system to further increase the delivery of renewable energy to the grid during times when more costly – and often more polluting – peaking power plants may be used to meet customer needs. The potential use of a co-located battery energy storage system at the facility would add to Electrify America’s ongoing effort of deploying over 30 MW of co-located behind-the-meter energy storage systems at charging stations across the U.S.

The groundbreaking is expected in late 2022 with a target operation date of Summer 2023. Although the new solar facility will not be online until mid-2023, Electrify America’s charging network is already backed by 100% renewable energy effective April 2022 through the purchase of environmental certificates from existing renewable generation.

In addition, and to further bolster near-term sustainability impact, Electrify America has entered into an interim VPPA, effective October 2022, with Terra-Gen to support Terra-Gen’s existing Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) IX solar thermal plant until the adjacent new solar photovoltaic facility in San Bernardino County is fully operational.

Electrify America will receive the bundled environmental certificates and purchase renewable energy from SEGS IX, once part of the largest solar thermal energy generating facility in the world when completed in 1990 and also the world’s longest-operating solar thermal facility.

“Electrify America is proud to support SEGS, which was instrumental to fostering renewable energy generation in the 20th Century and parallels to Electrify America’s mission to advance electric vehicle adoption today,” states Jigar Shah, head of energy services at Electrify America. “In aggregate, these 100% renewable energy commitments address Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions for all energy delivered to our customers, and amount to an estimated 2 million metric tons in avoided CO2 emissions over 15 years – comparable to the carbon sequestered by planting nearly 40 million trees.”

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Li-Cycle’s co-founders and the Mayor of Gilbert at the opening of the Arizona spoke facility. Image: Li-Cycle/Business Wire.

Lithium-ion battery recycler Li-Cycle has opened its third recycling facility, in Arizona.

The facility in the town of Gilbert, Arizona, has the capacity to process up to 10,000 tonnes of battery manufacturing scrap and end-of-life batteries, and is the first to use Li-Cycle’s proprietary technology to directly process full EV battery packs. It will be able to recycle the packs without dismantling them manually, making it safer, more sustainable and labour-efficient, the company said.

Arizona made sense as a location because of its emergence as a key part of the US EV supply chain, as well as its proximity to California, whose large EV consumer and energy storage market should provide an increasing supply of end-of-life batteries, Li-Cycle added. The company only announced its intention to build the Arizona plant in April 2021, making it a quick turnaround for it to go into action.

The Gilbert ‘Spoke’ facility is strategically located close to Li-Cycle’s existing battery and manufacturing scrap supply network in the Southwestern US. It is part of the company’s Hub and Spoke model, with a major Hub in Rochester, New York, expected to come online in 2023.

Spoke facilities will send black mass – containing critical metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel – which will then be processed at the Rochester Hub, which will have the capacity to process 35,000 tonnes of material a year.

A fourth Spoke facility in Alabama is set to open in the third quarter of 2022.

The announcement comes just a week after natural resources giant Glencore invested US$200 million into Li-Cycle which built on a US$100 million investment by Koch Strategic Platforms a few months prior. The company has also secured an off-take and supply deal as well as a combined US$50 million investment from LG Energy Solution and LG Chem, which it closed a few days ago.

The company’s share price currently sits at US$7.60, up around 10% since before yesterday’s announcement, leaving it with a market cap of US$1.3 billion. It went public in a SPAC merger last year.

Its Arizona facility is the second major recycling facility to have started operations this week, with Northvolt and Hydro’s Hydrovolt facility in Norway also launching.

Elsewhere in the US, the country’s largest single-site battery recycling facility is under construction near EV battery gigafactories in Georgia, through startup Ascend Elements, which expects to have it up and running this August. Another US recycling and resources specialist, Redwood Materials, has said it is already receiving about 6GWh of lithium batteries for recycling each year at its facility near Tesla’s Gigafactory One in Nevada.

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The VelociWrapper Co. has been awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its flagship product, the VelociWrapper , a cable-wrapping machine that increases speed, bolsters efficiency and reduces costs for wind and solar farm installations in the renewable energy construction sector.

“Due to the demand for our machine, we have already outgrown our first facility and are currently moving our manufacturing operations into a facility five times the size to accommodate the growth,” explains Torrance Bistline, the founder and inventor of the VelociWrapper. “We have more patents and innovations in the works as well which we will be unveiling soon.”

The VelociWrapper requires no motorized power to run. Once the cables are laid in the ground using the triplexing machine system, it contributes to 5-8% more efficiency in the transfer of energy through to its destination, which also reduces heat and extends the life of the cable.

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