Powin Energy’s Centipede battery energy storage platform, which it will use for the project. Image: Powin Energy.

System integrator Powin Energy has been chosen by Idaho Power to supply 120MW/524MW of battery energy storage system (BESS) projects, the state’s first utility-scale storage developments.

The BESS projects are set to come online in summer 2023 and Idaho Power said they will help maintain reliable services during periods of high use, and help the utility achieve 100% clean energy by 2045. It still needs to be approved by the regulator and will likely comprise a 40MW and a 80MW system at separate locations.

The 40MW system may be at the Black Mesa solar facility in Elmore County, while the larger project could adjoin the Hemingway substation near the city Melba, although other sites are being considered for both.

“Battery storage enables us to use existing generation sources efficiently while setting the stage for more clean energy in the coming years,” said Adam Richins, Idaho Power senior vice president and chief operating officer.

Powin Energy will supply its Stack750 product, part of its Centipede platform, for the projects which will have an average duration of 4.36 hours. The modular BESS platform uses lithium iron phosphate (LF) battery cells from CATL and EVE with a cycle life of 7,300 and a DC round trip efficiency of 95% at four-plus hours, according to a datasheet from the Portland, Oregon-based firm.

Idaho Power submitted a request to the northwestern state’s Public Utilities Commission to determine whether the project proposal is in the public interest last week. It follows a request for proposals (RFP) in May last year for new resources coming online in 2023.

Powin’s press release said a strong economy and population growth are driving Idaho’s need for additional power capacity while transmission constraints have limited its ability to import energy from the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. The state is seeking 1,700MW of energy storage and more than 2,100MW of solar and wind capacity by 2040, according to its latest integrated resource plan.

Powin Energy was the fifth-largest BESS system integrator in 2021 according to IHS Markit’s annual rankings report, after Fluence, NextEra Energy Resources, Tesla and Wartsila.

The company recently scored 5.8GW of BESS project orders from four developers in Taiwan and the US for a 2022-24 delivery timeframe and also recently entered the Indian market through a partnership. Executive VP Danny Lu contributed to a year-in-review article on Energy-storage.news in December.

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Anesco has delivered over 30 utility-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the UK. Image: Anesco.

UK-based renewable energy developer Anesco will use its acquisition of a German wind and solar developer to expand into the country’s utility-scale energy storage market, CEO Mark Futyan told Energy-storage.news.

Anesco has acquired Aeos Energy for an undisclosed sum and launched its Anesco Germany subsidiary, nearly a year after being acquired by Ara Partners and Askiom and a month after it set up its first office abroad in the Netherlands, as covered by our sister site Solar Power Portal.

CEO Futyan told Energy-storage.news: “Our new owners are keen for us to take a real step change in growth, so not only pursuing our existing substantial pipeline in the UK but also having a foothold across Europe too. We want to be a three-technology-company of solar, storage and wind, and to do that in multiple countries.”

Aeos has a portfolio of 55 sites under operational management and a pipeline of development opportunities ahead. Futyan said it will use the firm, which does not list any storage assets in its portfolio, as a platform to expand into the utility-scale energy storage market in Germany rather than through another acquisition.

The company will also focus on the utility-scale segment rather than move into commercial & industrial or residential, the dominant sectors in German energy storage, although this requires starting off small as he explained.

“Our core competency is around grid-scale and that’s what we want to do in our new markets. The grid-scale market in Germany has been fairly quiet for a number of years, be it solar or wind or storage, due to a mix of planning rules and the way auctions work. That has to change partly because of the need for energy independence but also the scale of change needed to decarbonise is too great for small-scale installations alone,” Futyan said.

“We believe that opportunity is coming and we want to get ourselves established here and bring our track record of successfully delivering large grid-scale projects. For now, that will be more solar and wind with storage coming a step later, as it will be needed when you have more intermittency on the grid.”

“I don’t think we’ll be building 50MW standalone projects in Germany any time soon. I think we will be be looking at a 20MW solar project sand adding one to two MW storage onto them, for example. This is this is the trajectory that I would anticipate, and I would have thought that will be happening within one to two years.”

Colocated storage projects will particularly help with managing wind farm curtailment in northern Germany, where some sites are curtailed up to 30% of the time, he said. This could then be combined with energy trading, frequency regulation and grid balancing.

He also said that Anesco’s operational model may have to be tweaked slightly from its approach in the UK. There, it develops large projects to the point of being ready for construction, at which point it sells the project to investors and wraps a suite of services around the deal like construction, operational and trading services. But in Germany the company is to some extent starting over without a mature development pipeline, he said.

“So in order to not wait the 2-5 years for that to reach maturity we may partner or buy into pipelines to accelerate that process to repeat our UK model in slightly less time. We’re not going to completely replicate the exact same structure in each market. We’ll centralise some things in the UK and rely on local market expertise for others.”

When asked what other international markets it was eyeing up, Futyan said that it was generally focused around North Europe in regions where there was still plenty of potential for new projects. The company’s supply chain and design technology works best in wetter, lower solar intensity regions, he said.

Prior to the acquisition, Anesco had 11 grid-scale solar PV and energy storage projects under design and construction totalling 360MW of power. It has built more than 100 solar farms and 30 energy storage facilities in the UK and Netherlands.

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The board of directors of the Long Duration Energy Storage Council. Image: Long Duration Energy Storage Council.

The Long Duration Energy Storage Council, the organisation formed last year to push for the global deployment of eight-hour-plus duration storage technologies, has elected its first board of directors.

The CEO-led organisation was launched at COP26 in November and has now incorporated in Brussels, Belgium, and appointed its leadership team.

The board of directors was nominated by the Council’s membership and is headed by two co-presidents. The first is Michael Geyer, senior technical advisor for utility scale power storage at pumped-heat energy storage (PHES) technology company Malta Inc. The second is Frank Wouters, senior vice president energy transition for the massive Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries.

The rest of the board is made up of:

Rune Sonne Bundgaard-Jørgensen of Denmark-based power company ØrstedJim Cabot of Bill Gates-founded investment group Breakthrough EnergyEric Dresselhuys of iron flow battery company ESS INCNigel Jenvey of energy infrastructure equipment manufacturer Baker HughesUpma Koul of heavy industrial group Sumitomo SHI FWLetizia Magaldi of Italian thermal energy storage startup Magaldi Green EnergyPatrick McClughan of hydrogen-based storage group Corre EnergySteve Reynish of sodium-based battery company EnlightenJoe Zhou of geomechanical pumped storage (GPS) technology provider Quidnet Energy

Shortly after being formed in November, the Long Duration Energy Storage Council published its first report. Its headline figure was the estimation that deployment of 85TWh to 140TWh of long duration energy storage (LDES) by 2040 could be enough to keep the world on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

The Council is made up of 19 anchor members comprised of a mix of large corporations with interest in renewable energy, from tech giants Google and Microsoft to fossil fuel and mining groups BP and Rio Tinto. It also has 28 technology members who provide LDES solutions, including those named on the board.

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Interim Chairman Emile C. Thompson

The Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia issued its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS) Report for Compliance Year 2021 to the D.C. Council. This year’s report, now available for public review, noted the significant expansion of RPS-certified solar facilities despite challenges stemming from the pandemic and other market fluctuations. Within the compliance year, the commission approved a total of 2,337 new solar energy systems for the RPS program, including 2,077 district systems of which 82 were community renewable energy facilities (CREFs). 

The commission has certified 10,013 solar energy systems in the district, as of year-end 2021, representing 154.7 MW of capacity. Of these district solar energy systems, 219 were CREFs – an increase of 210 RPS-certified CREFs since 2018. The report notes a total of 12,955 solar energy systems certified for RPS.

The report also shows that the commission exceeded the estimated solar capacity of 182.3 MW required to meet the 2.5% solar requirement for 2021 with total RPS certified solar capacity of 191.8 MW at year-end 2021. They assisted the growth of CREFs by finalizing a rulemaking that capped distribution system upgrade cost-sharing to an allocation at $500,000 per year. Subject to availability of funds, individual projects were capped at $25,000, or 50% of the upgrade costs.

The commission considered distribution system upgrade cost-sharing for non-CREFs in a rulemaking as well as requiring Pepco to stand up and maintain a public interconnection queue to foster transparency, accountability and overall interconnection process efficiency. This new online feature went live in late February 2022 and allows developers and customers to view information such as facility capacity, fuel type and status of the application. The commission also saw growth in solar energy facilities certified for the RPS program continued in the first quarter of 2022, with 720 new systems added (including 42 CREFs).

“We are proud of progress that has occurred over the past year. The commission remains committed to working with district leadership, as well as the community, to meet our renewable energy goals. We look forward to continuing to support and enhance the district’s aggressive climate goals,” says Interim Chairman Emile C. Thompson. Chairman Thompson recently testified before the Committee on Business and Economic Development where he confirmed the Commission’s focus on reduction of greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions in FY2022 and FY2023.

Read the full report here.

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Another Recurrent Energy LLC project, Pflugerville Solar, located in Travis County, Texas

Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) has approved a power purchase agreement with Recurrent Energy LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Solar Inc., for the 132 MW DC/ 98 MW AC Bayou Galion solar project located in Morehouse Parish in Northeast Louisiana.

The Bayou Galion solar project is expected to start construction and begin operation in 2024. It is a part of 1803 Electric Cooperative’s recently approved power generation portfolio to supply energy to five Louisiana rural electric cooperatives for the next 20 years. The approved portfolio includes 343 MW AC of solar energy, including Recurrent’s 98 MW AC Bayou Galion solar project, and will significantly increase the amount of solar energy capacity in the state. As of year-end 2021, Louisiana had approximately 200 MW of solar energy installed.

“Solar energy is the lowest cost new energy resource across the U.S., and we are pleased to support 1803 Electric Coop’s goals to bring lower rates for its members,” says Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar. “We look forward to continuing to advance the development of the Bayou Galion solar project and starting construction in 2024.”

“1803 followed all of the commission rules and conducted a competitive RFP, whereby 31 bidders put forth 197 qualifying offers,” comments LPSC Chairman Craig Greene. “This robust response to 1803’s RFP I think is a powerful indication that a broad cross-section of companies want to invest in Louisiana’s energy future and deliver lower rates with reliable, flexible options to customers.”

1803 Electric Coop’s members serve approximately 120,000 members in Louisiana. ACES administered the selection process for the entire selected and approved power generation portfolio on behalf of 1803 Electric Coop.

“Being able to provide a reduction in future rates for our members is extraordinary,” adds Charles Hill, general manager of 1803 Electric Coop. “We are pleased to partner with Recurrent Energy, a well-respected solar and energy storage developer, and we look forward to bringing this project online.”

“I am confident that 1803’s proposal and Recurrent Energy’s project will provide reliable and inexpensive power to these Louisiana co-ops for years to come,” mentions LPSC Commissioner Foster Campbell, who represents the parish where the Bayou Galion project will be located. “In addition, Recurrent’s Bayou Galion project will bring around 300 construction jobs to our area.”

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Another Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC solar project in Washington

Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC (GREC), through a wholly owned subsidiary, has purchased three pre-operational, utility-scale solar projects in New York from Hecate Energy LLC. Once completed, the three projects – all located in Greene County, in upstate New York – will deliver 50 MW AC of solar power to consumers in the tri-state area.

All three projects are slated to reach commercial operation in 2023. Each comes with a long-term contract in place with an investment-grade offtaker, which will provide reliable long-term revenue to Greenbacker.

The acquisition represents Greenbacker’s second closed transaction with Hecate. Greenbacker also has signed agreements with Hecate to develop a number of additional solar assets in New York – a pipeline totaling hundreds of MWs of clean energy over the next few years. Previously, GREC had acquired two 20 MW AC utility-scale solar projects (Albany 1 and Albany 2) from the developer, both of which are slated to enter commercial development in late 2022.

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The project in Gujarat, India, includes an 18MWh BESS. Image: FIMER/Mahindra Susten.

Italy-headquartered solar inverter manufacturer FIMER supplied 1MVA inverters to a solar-plus-storage project with a 18MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Gujarat, India.

FIMER supplied its inverters to the Integrated Solar Energy Project in Modhera, a town in the district of Mehsana. The project belongs to Indian solar PV engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) solution provider Mahindra Susten and was awarded by the state’s utility, Gujarat Power Corporation Limited (GPCL).

The project can be split into two parts. It pairs various distributed solar resources in the town totalling around 420kW of power generation with 150kWh BESS, plus a standalone 6MW/18MWh BESS with a 6MW grid connection.

FIMER claimed the project is one of the largest BESS in India in operation to-date and makes the town of Modhera, which has a population of around 7,000, totally self-reliant for electricity.

The Milan-based firm supplied a power conversion system (PCS) of 1MVA x 6 nos for the project. It said that during hours of solar production the solar inverter provides power to the local grid and any excess charges the BESS. The PCS can also support load demand during periods of solar deficits.

FIMER’s PCS is also equipped with a black start mode for when the local grid fails and grid-following mode for when the grid comes back, acting as a back-up when required. It is the first 1MW bidirectional converter supplied to the Indian market, FIMER claimed.

KN Sreevatsa, country managing director at FIMER India, said: “At FIMER, we believe not only in providing tailormade solutions for the customer’s maximum benefit, but we also like to ‘Make a difference’ to their lives. We fully support our PM’s (prime minister) vision of making small towns and cities self-sustainable and we are glad to be a part of this remarkable project.”

The Indian battery energy storage market is poised for massive growth, for both standalone and hybrid generation-plus-storage applications, with the country targeting 500GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. Modelling from the national Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has found India is likely to need about 27GW/108GWh of non-pumped hydro energy storage by that time.

Energy-Storage.news reported today that Indian state-owned power producer NTPC’s renewable energy subsidiary is launching a 500MWh battery storage tender, following a similar recent move by the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI). Various market rules and regulations have been adjusted or rewritten in recent months as the country’s union government seeks to support and accelerate energy storage deployment. Various international players such as Fluence, Powin Energy and GE Renewable Energy have been enticed into joining the Indian market or increased their existing involvement based on those strong fundamental drivers.

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Inauguration for Polarium’s factory in South Africa. Image: Polarium.

Polarium, a Swedish manufacturer of lithium-ion based battery energy storage systems (BESS) technology, has been valued at over a billion dollars.

The company said today that AMF, a Swedish pensions company, made the commitment to invest based on the valuation, which places Polarium in the ‘unicorn’ category of tech startups worth more than a billion US dollars.

Institutional investor AMF is investing SEK955 million (US$100 million) and JP Morgan SE served as Polarium’s sole placement agent for the transaction.

Polarium launched in 2015 mainly targeting the telecoms sector. Its battery modules were designed as drop-in replacements for lead-acid batteries as well as being able to provide backup power that is currently done using diesel generators on standby. It does not currently target the data centre market, however.

The modules come with the company’s own integrated battery management system (BMS) and Polarium offers both nickel and iron cathode battery chemistries, using cells sourced from leading suppliers.

Latterly, Polarium has also been targeting other commercial and industrial (C&I) market segments, including microgrids, standalone, solar-plus-storage and other hybridised battery energy storage systems (BESS) and EV charging.

In early April, the company began a pilot project in its home country with Areim, a real estate owner and fund manager, to deploy an energy storage system at a large commercial property development in Stockholm.

The system, which was commissioned in March, will enable Areim to participate in various grid balancing services markets, having qualified to provide fast frequency response (FFR) services to transmission system operator Svenska Kraftnat.

One of Polarium’s main business areas in which it is targeting growth is in energy optimisation services of that type, which leverages battery storage to earn revenues from a number of different streams for essentially storing energy when it is cheap and abundant and dispatching it when most needed.

A company representative told Energy-Storage.news today that Polarium is excited about adding and expanding energy optimisation capabilities to its suite of services. Optimisation has provided routes to market for battery storage to perform various grid balancing applications in a growing number of markets around the world, through a combination of automated and human-driven decision making. The company is active in 70 countries already.

Polarium, founded in 2015, said it has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 150% over the five-year period from 2016-2021, with net sales of SEK1.1 billion in 2021 and EBITDA of SEK83 million.

The company has just opened a new production facility in Cape Town, South Africa, which will have an annual production capacity of 4GWh when fully ramped up and will employ 200 people. That came off the back of a multi-year supply deal Polarium signed with telecoms infrastructure company ATC Africa. Polarium also has factories in operation in Mexico and Vietnam.  

It has been a “rapid growth journey from day one,” Polarium’s CEO and founder Stefan Jansson said, from its core competencies in reducing the carbon footprint and increasing profitability of telecoms companies through replacing lead-acid and diesel to its diversified position targeting broader market opportunities.

“With AMF as our partner, we are well positioned to accelerate our growth within reserve power, and springboard that expertise to capture more of the ever-growing market for energy optimisation,” Jansson said.

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Zenobe is involved in battery energy storage (pictured), electric mobility solutions and the nexus where those two meet. Image: Zenobe.

Zenobē has begun construction of its 50MW/100MWh battery storage asset in Scotland, said to be the first transmission connected battery in the country.

The project in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire was first announced in May 2021 and, having reached financial close, is now expected to go live by the end of 2022.

It is being financed by Santander UK. Zenobē is working with Centrica as the route to market provider, Fluence as the battery energy storage system (BESS) supplier and H&MV as the principal designer and contractor.

“This project demonstrates real innovation,” said James Basden, co-founder and director of Zenobē.

“Scotland is leading the world in its move to renewable energy and Zenobē is proud to be providing the critical infrastructure needed for the country’s clean energy transition. Alongside our partners Fluence, Centrica, H&MV and Santander UK, we’re increasing flexibility of power supply for Glasgow and the wider network and so allowing a greater uptake of renewable energy.”

The battery will be the first in a series of major battery flexibility projects, he added, forming part of the company’s plans to invest roughly £500 million (US$624.81 million) in Scotland in the next five years.

Once operational, Centrica will optimise the battery and provide access to a variety of revenue streams for the asset.

 “We’re delighted to support Zenobē with multi-market optimisation services,” said Arno Van Mourik, director of Centrica Business Solutions International.

“We’ll leverage our proprietary FlexPond platform and trading capabilities to be in the right market at the right time, unlocking greater returns over the lifetime of the project, while supporting the decarbonisation of our power system.”

The Wishaw battery asset will also be used as part of National Grid ESO’s Constraints Management pathfinder, helping to identify and tackle challenges around transmission capacity in the region. Zenobē said that it will be the first battery in the UK to act as a flexibility tool to manage such constraints.

Zenobē is continuing to build out its battery energy storage portfolio in the UK, having also begun construction of its 100MW/107MWh battery at Capenhurst, near Chester in June 2021. This too was financed by Santander UK, following a first-of-a-kind facility between Zenobe and Santander UK in 2019.

This story first appeared on Solar Power Portal.

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The move to procure battery storage by NTPC – which formerly stood for the National Thermal Power Corporation – has been welcomed by the energy storage industry across India and beyond. Image: NTPC.

Indian state-owned power producer NTPC has launched a tender for large-scale battery storage, just a few days after the Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) also began a similar solicitation process.

The strategic procurement group at NTPC subsidiary NTPC Renewable Energy has opened up for competitive bidding from domestic and international entities to develop 250MW/500MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS).

Bidders will be put into a reverse auction system. The scope of works includes everything from design and engineering to transportation, installation and commissioning, while winners will be responsible for operations and maintenance (O&M) for 12 years from the date of commercial operation start.

The standalone BESS would be connected to India’s Inter-State Transmission System (ISTS) from a site near to Fatehgarh-III substation in Rajasthan.

That’s the same substation for which SECI is tendering to connect 500MW/1,000MWh of BESS through its own tariff-based competitive bidding process which was launched in mid-April, as reported by Energy-Storage.news.

SECI is planning that tender as the first tranche of 4,000MWh of procurement.

NTPC Renewable Energy’s parent company is also thought to be seeking to tender at least 1,000MWh of BESS for deployment at some of its many thermal power plant sites in India – NPTC has a 65GW portfolio of generation assets – and these tenders from state-backed companies have driven great interest in India’s energy storage market.

US BESS manufacturer Powin Energy recently launched a partnership with India energy company O2 Power to take on opportunities including but not limited to those solicitations. Powin senior VP Danny Lu told Energy-Storage.news that it was vitally important to the Oregon-headquartered manufacturer to find a partner like O2 which had experience of and understood the Indian market deeply, especially when it came to tendering, which Lu said can be unique and specific to local market conditions.

Respondents to NTPC Renewable Energy’s latest tender must put in their bids by 6 June. They must be able to prove track record and meet annual turnover requirements, while the BESS equipment put in place has to experience less than 2.5% degradation of MWh capacity annually and retain 70% of capacity by the end of the 12 year contract term.

Full details of the tender can be seen in NTPC’s document here.

Last week, Energy-Storage.news reported that NTPC had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore the possibility of working with Energy Vault, a European-American startup working to commercialise a novel form of gravity-based mechanical energy storage.

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