Ribbon-cutting ceremony for Illinois American Water-Sol Systems solar project

Sol Systems and Illinois American Water, a large investor-owned water utility in Illinois, have begun operations on their second solar project, located in Peoria, Ill. The 2.3 MW solar project includes bifacial panels and single-axis trackers.

“The solar fields support the company’s commitment to protect the environment, while supporting sustainability and affordability,” says Justin Ladner, Illinois American Water’s president. “The vast majority of energy consumed by water utilities is used to pump water. By reducing energy consumption and emissions we can use water more efficiently, protect the environment and reduce costs to our customers.”

Illinois American Water will purchase the electricity under a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Sol Customer Solutions. Sol Customer Solutions is a joint venture between Sol Systems and Arevon Energy Inc. Arevon will manage the asset and Sol Systems will operate and maintain the project.

“This project demonstrates Illinois American Water’s commitment to the communities it serves,” comments Andrew Grin, vice president at Sol Systems. “Through onsite solar, Illinois American Water succeeds in reducing its reliance on fossil fuels, cutting its operating costs, and improving the sustainability of its operations.”

Sol Systems partnered with construction firm Melink Solar to build the project.

“Melink Solar is grateful for the partnership and forward-thinking approaches of Illinois American Water and Sol Systems,” states Seth Parker, vice president and general manager for Melink Solar. “These organizations are helping lead the clean energy revolution to help improve our global economy, security and environment – for ourselves, our children and future generations.”

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Ozop Energy Systems Inc. (OES), a subsidiary of Ozop Energy Solutions Inc.’s (OZSC), has issued purchase orders (PO) to acquire approximately $11 million in solar panels. The company has already put down as deposits over $1.7 million in order to secure the delivery and will be making additional deposits prior to delivery.

Approximately $6 million of the product is expected to arrive by August 2022, with the remaining $5 million forecasted to arrive in November 2022.

“In addition to the above purchase orders, we are working with all of our vendors to secure more product this year and into Q1, 2023,” states Christopher Serna, director of sales for Ozop Energy Systems. “While we are not entirely sure how much in additional product we can obtain in this climate, we have deep rooted relationships with vendors that we have worked with almost a decade. The addition of these large PO’s is allowing us to solidify multi-MW forecasts from customers that we would otherwise not have access to.”

Image: Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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As part of its sustainable energy initiatives, Bank OZK has finished construction of its recently announced 4.8 MW solar power plant in Stuttgart, Ark. The 11,265 solar panel array will produce enough electricity to power the bank’s new corporate headquarters in Little Rock and up to 40 Bank OZK locations throughout central Arkansas. Currently, it is among the state’s largest commercial solar facilities dedicated to a private sector customer.

“After several months of construction, Bank OZK is pleased to announce that our solar power plant is fully operational,” says Tim Hicks, chief credit and administrative officer. “By shrinking our carbon footprint and offsetting our electricity usage, Bank OZK continues its commitment to the environment with this new source of clean and sustainable energy. The solar plant is another great example of how Bank OZK is a leader in the financial services sector.”

This solar panel array is expected to significantly shrink the bank’s carbon footprint by an estimated 160,000 tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years, equivalent to the emissions of over 390 million passenger car miles.

Scenic Hill Solar LLC, of Little Rock, Ark., managed construction of the solar power project for the bank.

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Installation of an Energy Warehouse iron electrolyte flow battery unit. Image: ESS Inc via Twitter.

Iron electrolyte flow battery company ESS Inc continues to await recognition of revenues, but has “strong confidence” in its trajectory towards profitability.

ESS Inc is the only provider of flow battery technology based on all-iron electrolyte, a non-toxic liquid that allows for the same ability to scale up the energy capacity of storage units as flow batteries using vanadium.

The US company has developed its proprietary technology and ships units to customers globally, recently opening its first offices in Europe. However, as it openly said before its shares listed publicly, and highlighted by its full-year 2021 results, the cost of commercialisation remains high and there remains work to do before it can go into profit.

CEO Eric Dresselhuys said in an earnings call to explain its Q1 financial results this week that to achieve that, ESS Inc is committed to lowering its costs and significantly ramping up manufacturing capacity.

ESS Inc also believes that the market drivers for energy storage are growing strong in many regions of the world as the transition to renewable energy accelerates and its technology is set to benefit, Dresselhuys said.

At the end of 2021, due to the revaluation of warrants pertaining to the company’s merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that gave it a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) listing, the company reported US$477 million losses for the year.

With the listing out of the way, there were no such accounting movements in Q1 2022, and ESS Inc said it holds more than US$235 million total assets with just over US$212 million in cash and cash equivalents.

Its biggest expense for the quarter was US$12.9 million spent on research and development (R&D).

Shipments of ESS Inc’s Energy Warehouse large-scale battery storage units were successfully made during the quarter for customer San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), one of California’s three main investor-owned utility (IOU) groups.

These were for the Cameron Corners zero emissions microgrid project, which will utilise 3MWh of Energy Warehouse units to create six-hours duration of energy storage to enable critical facilities in the city of Cameron Corners to maintain power supply in the event of the public safety power shutoffs (PSPS) that California’s IOUs have enacted to prevent electricity infrastructure causing or exacerbating wildfires, as well as grid outages or other emergencies.

Two units of a total six have been shipped, Dresselhuys said, for the “truly exciting utility grade project”. Elsewhere in ESS Inc’s home state of Oregon, another 3MWh system is going to be delivered for utility company Portland General Electric (PGE) to test and trial.

ESS Inc will ship between 40 and 50 Energy Warehouses during 2022, the CEO said, while manufacturing has become semi-automated and is on track to be fully automated before the end of the year.

“A strong capacity ramp coupled with significant cost reductions will be instrumental in our efforts to accelerate our path to profitability,” Dresselhuys said.

Supply chain challenges have faced the energy storage industry in the past few months – in fact supply chain challenges have faced pretty much every industry in the past few months – and ESS Inc was no different. However, despite a “less than optimal” start to the year regarding its electronics supply chain, ESS Inc’s CEO claimed it now has a “strong handle” on securing components and delivering production on schedule this year.

However, one supply chain issue facing most of the energy storage industry that ESS Inc isn’t exposed to is the rising cost of lithium and other lithium battery materials like cobalt and nickel. Dresselhuys claimed that with abundant ingredients of iron, salt and water in the company’s battery iron electrolyte, ESS Inc is on track to have “the most viable lithium alternative grid storage system available” to the market.

And that addressable market is poised to accelerate the already rapid growth it has seen in the past few years, the CEO claimed, and in just the past year the market dynamics for the long-duration storage ESS Inc provides (typically between 4-12 hours) have changed in its favour, he said.

Dresselhuys picked out Europe, particularly Germany, as a key market where renewable energy ambitions are high but unlikely to be achieved without massive amounts of energy storage. He also referred to recent comments by Tesla CEO Elon Musk that the world will need 300TWh of storage to transition all energy use across transport, electricity and heating and cooling to low carbon sources.

“We think he’s right,” Dresselhuys said.

That said, the ability to recognise revenues remained just out of reach for ESS Inc in Q1 once again. This was due to a number of “unanticipated challenges” that delayed revenues being recognised for units already shipped.

Chief financial officer Amir Moftakhar would not be drawn into giving details on what those challenges were, though admitted that they included “technical hurdles” and to some extent referred to what had been written into legacy contracts.

Though the CFO said the company views progress on resolving those challenges as proceeding well, a note of caution was sounded on its ability to recognise revenues of around US$10 million that the 40 to 50 Energy Warehouse units ESS Inc expects to ship would generate in time to be recorded before the end of this year.

Moftakhar did say that ESS Inc expects to end this year holding in excess of US$120 million in cash and cash equivalents, with non-GAAP operating expenses expected to come in at about US$100 million. In other words, the flow battery company has “more than ample liquidity” to run the business.

On the production lines, the CFO said ESS Inc will end the year with 750MWh annual production capacity from those by-then fully automated lines.

Conference call transcript by Seeking Alpha.

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Europe’s plans urgently need to be revised, various industry sources say. Image: NASA.

A leaked draft version of RePower EU, the policy strategy designed to liberate the European Union from ties to Russian fossil fuel imports, includes no mention of energy storage.

The draft, seen by Energy-Storage.news, is by no means a final version of the document but is thought to be intended for publication on 18 May.

In March, the European Council of EU leaders agreed that there was an urgent need to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels, particularly gas. The plan that is now being put together will do this by “fast forwarding the clean transition and joining forces to achieve a more resilient power system and a true Energy Union,” the draft said.

The EU believes the Fit for 55 package – which will commit EU countries to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 55% by 2030 and was already being put in motion before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began more than 70 days ago – would go some way to achieving these goals. But it has recognised that more needs to be done in both the short and medium term.

For example, Fit for 55’s energy efficiency measures will reduce gas consumption across EU Member States by 30% by 2030.

RePower EU calls for much greater action on deploying renewable energy and related smart energy technologies, like heat pumps and hydrogen electrolysers. It would increase the Renewable Energy Directive target from 40% to 45% by 2030, equivalent to 1236GW of installed renewables capacity, which is a step up from the 1067GW targeted through Fit for 55.

Yet alongside this push for a “massive” renewable energy scale-up, it also focuses heavily on diversifying import sources of fuels through a voluntary joint purchasing platform for gas, LNG and hydrogen.

The leaked draft mentions the word “storage” several times – but this is purely in the context of ensuring natural gas storage resources are sufficient, alongside some mention of hydrogen storage.

Lack of storage strategy was already problematic before RePower EU

While the document seen by Energy-Storage.news has been leaked ahead of intended publication date, it is no secret that energy storage has so far been largely absent from policy makers’ discussions around RePower EU.

The European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) already urged the European Commission to include consideration of batteries, mechanical and thermal storage technologies in its plans back in April, penning an open letter together with other trade groups.

Earlier this week Energy-Storage.news published comments from EASE’s secretary general, Patrick Clerens, who said that the massive rollout of renewable energy required will simply not be possible without adequate energy storage. Roughly 190GW of storage by 2030 will be necessary, EASE modelling has found, far beyond an installed base of about 60GW today.

Clerens also said in the interview that the EU’s modelling of its future energy system is largely modelled on outdated assumptions, which still consider thermal power plants as the cornerstone technology for balancing peaks in energy demand.

In fact, energy storage’s absence from EU strategies was already considered problematic by EASE members and other clean energy advocates long before the Russia-Ukraine crisis accelerated the call for energy independence. The EU’s Green Deal package had a similarly gaping energy storage-shaped hole, and the continental trade group had argued for its inclusion there, earlier this year, particularly for a lack of consideration of long-duration storage.

Yesterday, Florian Mayr, partner at Apricum, a specialist financial advisory group focused on cleantech, said that while RePower EU looked set to contain many “great things, like more renewable energy, more energy efficiency, more hydrogen and more heat pumps,” energy storage is a “missing puzzle piece” which would complete the picture.

“Can you spot what’s missing here? What’s wrong with that picture? That is energy storage. There will be no expansion of renewable energy to the extent that is announced, without providing the required flexibility the energy storage can provide – flexibility on all levels,” Mayr told Energy-Storage.news at the ees Europe event taking place in Munich, Germany, this week.

Mayr delivered the opening address at the ees Europe conference event on Tuesday, in which he called the Russian-Ukraine war as a “catastrophe on so many levels,” and a “big shock” which highlighted Europe’s dependence on fossil fuel imports.

Running in parallel with that is the climate change crisis. But both Mayr and Clerens said it is positive that not only have politicians decided to act quickly on the issue of fossil fuel imports, but that they have realised Europe has abundant sources of “indigenous” energy in the form of renewables, Clerens said.

German finance minister Christian Lindner even dubbed renewable energy as “freedom energy” earlier this year and the phrase was heard repeated many times at the Intersolar Europe / ees Europe events during the week.

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The Garland BESS, which Powin delivered for utility Southern Power in California and recently went online. Image: Powin Energy.

Renewable energy development company Ameresco has signed a non-exclusive purchasing framework with system integrator Powin Energy, totalling 2.5GWh of Powin’s Stack750 battery energy storage system (BESS) product until 2025.

The agreement will supply a portion of Ameresco’s BESS needs for a variety of customer projects through mid-2025. The company said it chose Powin’s Stack750 product thanks to its suitability for a range of projects, reduced deployment time and footprint and lower overall capital costs.

Doran Hole, EVP and CFO of Ameresco commented: “As costs have declined and the technology matured, battery storage has rapidly become a go to clean energy technology. Whether as a standalone system or as part of an integrated solar or microgrid solution, BESS have become an integral technology for customers looking to increase energy resiliency and reliability.”

“This agreement is designed to bolster our BESS availability with a high quality, flexible product and offer advantageous equipment delivery timelines to support our growing base of customers throughout our various vertical markets.”

The agreement is not related to the 2.15GWh that Ameresco is delivering for utility Southern California Edison across three sites, which was recently delayed, as reported by Energy-Storage.news. Ameresco said the Powin equipment covered by the latest deal will be used at projects for customers ranging from small municipal utilities to US federal agencies. The latter is a niche Ameresco has somewhat specialised in over the last few years, as discussed in this 2021 interview with Nicole Bulgarino, executive VP and general manager at the company’s federal solutions division.

Projects for government customers have exacting requirements on both performance and cost and are important for energy storage in the sense that they help prove the technical and business case for batteries, Bulgarino said.

Ameresco also recently agreed to supply a 6MW, one-hour BESS to a military base in the US state of Maryland, Fort Detrick, to supplement the base’s existing 18MW solar facility. The supplier of the storage system will be LS Energy Solutions, part of the large Korean conglomerate LS Group, which will provide its recently-launched AiON-ESS product.

The microgrid-ready BESS will help the military base lower its electricity spend through participating in the PJM grid‘s frequency regulation, demand response, and energy supply markets.

Meanwhile Powin is the fifth-largest commercial and industrial (C&I) or utility-scale BESS system integrator in the world according to IHS Markit. It recently announced that it would produce its Centipede platform, which Stack750 is part of, in North America, through manufacturer Celestica’s facility in Mexico.

“With our new North American production facility, we plan to provide Ameresco with both the advanced, modular and energy-dense hardware required for their use cases as well as the experience needed to navigate supply chain constraints,” said Powin CEO Geoff Brown, commenting on the purchasing framework announcement.

The Oregon-based company has built over 2GWh of systems in 12 states in the US and seven other countries and has a contracted pipeline to supply over 5.8GWh of energy storage systems globally over the next three years.

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Jennifer M. Granholm, Secretary of U.S. Department of Energy

The Biden Administration through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a request for information (RFI) seeking public input on the structure of a $505 million, long-duration energy storage initiative to increase the availability of and deliver affordable, reliable clean electricity. The new Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere Initiative, created by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will advance energy storage systems toward widespread commercial deployment by lowering the costs and increasing the duration of energy storage resources. Cheaper, longer energy storage can increase local control of the power system, build resilience for communities, minimize power grid disruptions and help reach President Biden’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035.

“The ability to move cheaper, cleaner electricity where and when it is needed most is the linchpin to a reliable energy grid and critical to meeting President Biden’s clean energy goals,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The Long Duration Energy Storage for Everyone, Everywhere initiative leverages the expertise of the Department, National Labs, and industry to drive next-generation energy storage – making solar power available when the sun isn’t shining and keeping wind energy on tap when there’s no breeze.”

Shorter duration storage is currently being installed to support today’s increasing amount of renewable energy generation and electrification. With help from the historic investments from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, more renewables will be deployed on the grid, and building and vehicle electrification will continue to rise. Longer duration storage technologies are needed as the nation must increases access and availability of renewable energy sources. Long duration energy storage – defined as systems that can store energy for more than 10 hours at a time – would support a low-cost, reliable, carbon-free electric grid. Cheaper and more efficient storage will make it easier to capture and store clean energy for use when energy generation is unavailable or lower than demand.

The initiative, administered through DOE’s new Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, will work to overcome these challenges and achieve the cost goal by investing approximately $505 million over four years to validate grid-scale long duration energy storage technologies and enhance the capabilities of customers and communities to integrate grid storage more effectively. DOE will implement three energy storage demonstration programs.

The Demo program will prepare a cohort of promising technologies for utility-scale demonstration, which might not otherwise proceed given potential technology investment risks, through lab, behind-the-meter, or campus demonstrations. Specifically, these field demonstrations are intended at the scale of 100 kW or less and have already been proven at lab-scale.

The Demo Projects will enable first-of-a-kind technologies at utility scale by mitigating risk during the final technical validation point before wider deployment, the steepest portion of the commercialization curve. Large, long-duration storage demonstrations in this program will need to be able to provide at least 10 hours of rated power and undergo enough third-party testing/validation to substantiate a pathway to meeting the target of a levelized cost of storage of $0.05/kWh.

The Pilot Grants program will address institutional barriers to technology adoption in the marketplace. Such barriers can be easier to resolve when a technology has been installed, operated, de-risked and shown to provide benefit to users, communities or the power system. Few entities have the financial capability to invest in such a pilot. Pilot grants will mitigate this barrier by enabling greater storage investment by eligible entities which include state energy offices, Tribal Nations, higher education, utilities and energy storage companies.

Under the overall Long Duration Energy Storage Initiative, DOE is also collaborating with the U.S. Department of Defense for long duration storage demonstrations on government facilities.

DOE’s Long Duration Storage Shot, launched in July 2021, sets a target of achieving a levelized cost of energy storage of $0.05/kWh, a 90% reduction from a 2020 baseline costs by 2030. This cost reduction will make dispatchable clean energy available through long duration energy storage the most cost-effective choice for electricity customers. To meet this target, a wide range of energy storage technologies, including electrochemical, mechanical, thermal, flexible generation, flexible buildings, and power electronics, will need to be considered, well beyond the traditional lithium-ion batteries.

In March, DOE’s Energy Storage for Social Equity Initiative selected 14 communities to receive technical assistance to leverage energy storage as a means of increasing resilience and long-term affordability.

These programs will prioritize projects that leverage a secure domestic supply chain and support the creation of good-paying union jobs. Consistent with the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, this initiative supports the goal that 40% of the benefits from climate investments flow to disadvantaged communities.

The goal of the RFI is to solicit feedback from a wide range of stakeholders on DOE’s implementation strategy and eligibility requirements. Comments must be received by 5:00 p.m. EDT on June 16, 2022, and can be submitted by emailing EnergyStorage41001RFI@ee.doe.gov.

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Trevor Hardy

An Axium Infrastructure-managed fund (Axium) has acquired BlueWave, a Boston-based solar and energy storage developer and certified B Corp. Under the terms of the acquisition, BlueWave will keep its name and entire team in place as the company focuses on the growth of its solar energy and storage development portfolio.

With an intent to integrate environmental social governance (ESG) at the heart of its project development and management process, Axium’s values align with BlueWave’s mission to transform access to renewable energy through a responsible development philosophy. Axium is supporting BlueWave’s work in community solar development and the practice of agrivoltaics and floatovoltaics. While Axium has several other asset-based investments in the renewable energy sector, this will be Axium’s first renewable development company acquisition.

“This acquisition marks a pivotal new period in BlueWave’s history. It was crucial for us to find a like-minded owner who shares in our mission to revolutionize renewable energy and to help us scale, and that partner is unequivocally Axium” says Trevor Hardy, CEO of BlueWave. “Axium’s ownership will enable tremendous growth opportunities as we look to own and operate our development assets and continue pioneering in dual-use solar development, storage development and accessibility of renewable energy for low- to middle income communities.”

The acquisition marks an opportunity for BlueWave to evolve its business model to not only develop, but also build, own and manage the projects within its development portfolio. With this, BlueWave will focus on hiring to support the transition to long-term asset ownership and build a team to support ongoing company growth.

“BlueWave is thrilled to join forces with such a deeply committed, mission-driven, ESG investor. Axium and BlueWave share common values and purpose and are united in a vision for achieving significant growth, innovation, and impact in the climate battle,” states John DeVillars, co-founder and chairman of BlueWave. “It’s a wonderful match, and with the talent and resources Axium adds to the equation, I have every confidence we will achieve that vision.”

“Our acquisition of BlueWave is a reflection of their solar and energy development innovation and a desire for us to significantly grow our renewable energy portfolio. We’re proud to support a company that not only shows growth and financial promise, but also aligns with our values and strong focus on ESG,” comments Thierry Vandal, president of Axium Infrastructure U.S. Inc. “We look forward to a bright and more sustainable future working alongside BlueWave’s tenured and talented team to push the limits on solar innovation.”

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Javier Quiñones

IKEA U.S. and SunPower Corp., a residential solar technology and energy services provider, are teaming up to make solar energy easier to access. Members of the IKEA Family customer loyalty program will be able to purchase home solar solutions, available through SunPower, to generate and store their own renewable energy and live more sustainably. Home Solar with IKEA is expected to launch in select California markets in the fall of 2022.

“At IKEA, we’re passionate about helping our customers live a more sustainable life at home. We’re proud to collaborate with SunPower to bring this service to the U.S. and enable our customers to make individual choices aimed at reducing their overall climate footprint,” says Javier Quiñones, CEO and chief sustainability officer at IKEA U.S. “The launch of Home Solar with IKEA will allow more people to take greater control of their energy needs, and our goal is to offer the clean energy service at additional IKEA locations in the future.”  

“We are thrilled to deliver exceptional solar products to IKEA customers through a unique and simplified buying experience,” comments Peter Faricy, SunPower’s CEO. “Together with IKEA, we can help introduce the incredible benefits of solar to more people and deliver on our shared value of making a positive impact on the planet.”

Home Solar with IKEA is just one of the many ways IKEA is working to become circular and climate positive by 2030. In the U.S., IKEA has a renewable energy portfolio – including two wind farms, two solar farms, two geothermal systems, seven biogas-fuel cells and rooftop solar arrays on 90% of IKEA locations.

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Maxeon Solar Technologies Ltd. and AlphaESS have entered into a global strategic partnership to develop integrated clean energy solutions for residential customers. The partnership combines AlphaESS’ power conversion and storage solutions and next-generation technology services with Maxeon’s solar panel technology and global go-to-market channel comprising a partner network of more than 1,400 installers and resellers in over 100 countries.

The partnership leverages both company’s skills in product design, technology development, quality control, supply chain and customer experience. The goal is to develop and deliver integrated solutions and advanced services to empower end customers with smart and green energy solutions to facilitate energy independence and an environmentally friendly lifestyle.

“Maxeon is moving ‘Beyond the Panel’ to introduce an ecosystem of clean energy products and services into our residential segment that will seamlessly work with our industry-leading solar panels,” says Jeff Waters, CEO at Maxeon Solar Technologies. “We are excited to leverage AlphaESS’ leadership across its hardware product portfolios and investment into next-generation energy software capabilities enabling also the SunPower One ecosystem. AlphaESS’ product flexibility, ease of installation and overall performance, together with its enhanced service capabilities, will improve the customer experience and simplify the adoption of clean energy solutions.

“AlphaESS has extensive experience in the solar storage industry and Maxeon is a leader in solar panel technology with the only 40-year warrantied panel on the market. It is a known innovator in panel reliability, performance, sustainability and overall value,” comments Dipl. Phys Alfred Wang, AlphaESS’ CEO. “Energy storage is indispensable to make the best use of the renewable energy, to realize the carbon neutrality, and for energy independence as well. Together, working with Maxeon as one team, we expect to unlock the full potential of the industry and place our clients on the best path for success, creating an unmatched customer experience and greater savings.”

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