LS Energy Solutions’ AiON ESS. Image: LS Energy Solutions.

LS Energy Solutions has delivered the first units of its new all-in-one energy storage system (ESS) solution, which will play into the PJM Interconnection ancillary services market in the US. 

The company, formed in 2018 through the acquisition of Parker-Hannifin’s grid-tied energy storage business by a subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate LS Group, has supplied a 14.6MW/13.7MWh configuration of its AiON Energy Storage System (AiON-ESS) to the site in New Jersey. 

The customer is New Jersey-based developer V20 Energy, and the 17-container system is now in the commissioning phase, with interconnection to the grid expected to happen in Q2 2022. 

It will participate in the wholesale electricity market of PJM, the regional transmission organisation (RTO) which spans all or part of 13 US states and the District of Columbia. 

LS Energy Solution launched the AiON-ESS last year, making it the latest energy storage provider to put on the market a modular, integrated solution for utility-scale and commercial & industrial (C&I) customers. 

V20 Energy has picked the AiON-ESS Power Series configuration, which is suitable for short duration applications requiring one hour of storage or less. Its counterpart, the Energy Series, is configurable for applications requiring two to four hours duration.   

LS Energy Solutions uses batteries from Tier 1 providers Samsung SDI and SK Innovation, coupled with the company’s own fourth generation string inverters and thermal management equipment. The systems can be augmented at a later date with the addition of new enclosures. 

The units come pre-assembled, which means they require minimal installation work and are easy to use, the company claimed. The AiON-ESS has undergone UL9540 testing.     

“Our design incorporates features which reduce on-site work and material by incorporating these functions in a stable and repeatable factory environment,” LS Energy Solutions CEO Steve Fludder said.

“We are leading a transition from executing bespoke projects to delivering standardised products.”

Energy storage system integrators across the industry are shifting towards offering standardised, modular and integrated products that can be factory assembled and installed more simply, Energy-Storage.news heard in a recent interview with market analyst Oliver Forsyth from IHS Markit.

Several leaders among global system integrators have taken this route, with products launched including Tesla with the Megapack, Wärtsilä’s Gridsolv Quantum, Fluence’s Cube and Powin’s Stack alongside offerings like Leclanché’s LeBlock, and Saft’s Intensium Max and others jostling for space in an increasingly crowded market.  

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Speeding up interconnection processes is needed to enable the adoption of more renewable energy. Image: Fluence.

Getting grid interconnection rights for energy storage in the US is difficult largely because procedures in place were not designed with energy storage in mind.

A consortium headed up by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC) and supported by the US Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office seeks to solve that situation, citing that barriers to interconnection are unnecessary, but solvable. 

Energy-Storage.news has heard from various sources that it can be a long and difficult process, not helped by COVID-19 related delays over the past two years. The US’ regional transmission and distribution providers have long queues of solar-plus-storage and standalone battery storage projects from developers waiting their turn. 

A point of connection to the grid, without which a battery system becomes quite literally pointless, is an extremely valuable piece of any project set to participate in grid services or energy markets.

IREC has led a multi-year project, Building a Technically Reliable Interconnection Evolution for Storage (BATRIES) and the result is a free toolkit and guide that makes recommendations for solving eight prominent regulatory or technical barriers to energy storage interconnection. 

Also in the BATRIES project team were the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), trade associations Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA), utility groups New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) and PacifiCorp, with Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger, a law firm. 

“By modernising the rules that govern the interconnection of energy storage systems, regulators and utilities can enable significantly more renewable energy on the distribution grid — in some cases as much as double the capacity,” IREC president and CEO Larry Sherwood said. 

“They can also make the interconnection process faster, predictable, and less costly for applicants.”

Barriers identified include the lack of inclusion of energy storage in interconnection rules, the need to update export rules and better information on where on the grid the best strategic locations to place storage capacity would be. 

Seth Hilton, an industry specialist at law firm Stoel Rives told Energy-Storage.news recently that California’s grid operator CAISO is getting far more energy storage interconnection requests than can be dealt with.

The state’s utilities and other load-serving entities might not be able to meet mandated deployment targets, he said. With California being the leading energy storage market in the US and therefore more experienced in working to integrate batteries, the situation did not bode well for other jurisdictions which are further behind, Hilton said. 

“Problems with interconnection for energy storage systems, both big and small, are on the rise in California,” California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) executive director Bernadette Del Chiaro said yesterday as the BATRIES toolkit was launched.

“Every policy maker and regulator who cares about energy reliability and the rapid deployment of clean energy solutions should pay attention to this toolkit today.”

The toolkit can be downloaded from the BATRIES website here.

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The Philippines’ first hybrid solar PV and battery plant, which was commissioned earlier this year. Image: ACEN.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) is taking part in a study to assess how technologies like solar-plus-storage hybrids can provide baseload power in the Philippines.

The IFC has partnered with Philippines integrated energy company AboitizPower Corporation to conduct the study jointly, looking at the mix of technologies which can help the country displace fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions. 

The Philippines is targeting for renewables to make up 35% of the generation mix by 2030 and 50% by 2040. That equates to about 15GW of wind and solar by 2030. Currently about 15% of power is generated by renewables, but the big majority of that is hydroelectric and geothermal energy. 

The study will include assessment of solar PV paired with battery storage, along with various other technologies and see how renewable generation can fit with the Philippines’ patterns of supply and demand and power needs. 

The country got its first-ever solar-plus-storage hybrid resources system just recently, with a 40MW/60MWh pilot battery energy storage system (BESS) project switched on at Alaminos Solar 120MW PV power plant by AC Energy, a subsidiary of Ayala Group.

For standalone energy storage meanwhile, another large integrated energy company, San Miguel Corporation, is building out a 1,000MW portfolio of assets working with system integrators and technology suppliers including Fluence, Wärtsilä and ABB.

AboitizPower is also building a handful of standalone BESS projects and the company said in mid-2021 that it views those as part of the foundation of a long-term growth strategy. AboitizPower said this as it committed to a moratorium on new coal power plant investments. 

Those standalone assets are being built as one-hour duration systems which will perform ancillary services. A look at solar-plus-storage as baseload energy will likely mean examining longer duration energy storage from batteries or other technologies.

“Based on the country’s natural resources, climate, and geography, we look forward to learning more about how we can generate base load power that is technically and financially feasible as well as scalable,” AboitizPower president and CEO Emmanuel V Rubio said on the study with IFC, calling it a “significant step in mapping an effective climate action roadmap for the company”.

“Given its climate commitments, IFC is confident that renewables will offer a viable path forward for the Philippines,” IFC Asia-Pacific regional VP Alfonso Garcia Mora said.

“Harnessing cleaner and natural resources, including solar and wind, will enable the country to diversify its energy mix and improve energy security while also tackling climate change impacts.”

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Abigail Ross Hopper

Over 100 manufacturers and producers sent a letter to President Biden, Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi and committee chairs stating their strong support for long-term clean energy tax incentives in federal budget reconciliation legislation.

“The pandemic and recent global conflicts have thrown energy markets and supply chains into turmoil, making it even more important to grow America’s energy manufacturing base,” says Abigail Ross Hopper, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. “The clean energy deployment and manufacturing incentives being considered by Congress are the blueprint to solving our energy security issues and would drive historic growth in domestic manufacturing and production. Manufacturers need policy certainty to make these capital investments.”

The signatories, which includes members of the Coalition for Clean Energy Jobs and Innovation, produce components and equipment that are essential to energy generation, storage, transmission and efficiency. They range from producers of steel, silicon, solar modules, heat pumps, fuel cells, and other key materials and goods. The letter states how the legislation will help grow existing production, revive jobs and production in key sectors, restart idled facilities, and lead to investment in significant production and manufacturing in the United States.

Ongoing geopolitical issues have energized the debate around how the United States sources its electricity and the opportunity for Congress to support clean energy production and deployment in the United States.

“We have a generational opportunity to quickly create tens of thousands of high-quality solar manufacturing jobs in America and strengthen our energy security,” comments Scott Moskowitz, director of market strategy and public affairs at Q CELLS America, a solar module manufacturer. “With these policies we can lower energy costs and grow our manufacturing base, but without them, our supply chains will remain strained and our clean energy future will be at risk. It’s imperative that that we pass this legislation as soon as possible.”

Long-term tax incentives will unlock significantly more manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand for clean energy, including U.S. steel production. The solar industry alone will need 2.5 million tons of steel annually by 2030.

“The 1-2 punch of pandemic and war have underscored the need for a robust domestic supply chain here in America. It’s not just energy independence. It’s also manufacturing independence,” mentions Nextracker CEO Dan Shugar, a solar tracker manufacturer. “We’re helping forge that new reality by re-shoring our manufacturing and de-risking our company’s supply chain in the process. Congress can encourage more companies to do the same by enacting manufacturing tax credits as part of a fiscally balanced energy bill.”

The letter highlights the abundance of available tools and natural resources in the U.S. to grow domestic production, and with the right policies in place, the companies that signed the letter are prepared to make investments that will benefit state and local economies across the country.

“The passage of clean energy tax credits will enable Solectria to immediately expand PV inverter production in the U.S. and solidify our position as a leading PV inverter supplier,” states Mark Goodreau, general manager at Solectria Renewables LLC, a solar inverter manufacturer. “For the industry overall, this will guarantee robust long-term growth, more new jobs for American workers, and a faster transition to renewable energy.”

Download a copy of the manufacturers letter here.

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GameChange Solar (GCS) will be supplying their Genius Tracker for New York State’s largest solar projects located in Albany County. The total system size is 50 MW DC. The Genius Tracker will support three module manufacturers that are all approved for SpeedClamp, a GCS pre-assembled part offering.

Additionally, GCS was awarded one of the largest landfill projects located in Lancaster, N.Y. The 13 MW project will utilize GCS’s Pour-in-Place ballasted system which is designed for landfill, brownfield and superfund sites. Both system orders are in for immediate shipment with expected deliveries later this year; once completed, they will power over 10,000 New York homes.

This is a major stepping stone for New York’s Clean Energy Standard (CES), the most comprehensive and ambitious clean energy goal in the state’s history. Seventy percent generation of New York State’s electricity must come from renewable energy sources by 2030.

“This is the start of many grander New York developments and GCS is fully equipped to support them all,” states Max Johnson, director of business development at GameChange Solar. “Our headquarters are located in New York’s backyard and we look forward to remaining the preferred supplier for utility-scale projects, in New York. The Genius Tracker was chosen for compatibility with various module types, pre-assembled parts for fast installation, and our dedicated supply chain.”

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Borrego’s utility scale solar farm in Milo, Maine

FirstLight Power is partnering with Borrego, a developer, EPC and O&M provider for large-scale renewable energy projects, to bring more clean energy to New England. Borrego will lead development efforts focused on building new distributed generation (DG) solar, DG storage and utility-scale standalone storage at FirstLight’s hydropower facilities in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The partnership will accelerate the creation of combined renewable energy and storage portfolios to deliver offerings to wholesale and retail customers across New England.

“I am thrilled to partner with Borrego to accelerate New England’s path to a fully decarbonized electric grid by advancing innovative new solar and energy storage offerings to customers in Massachusetts and Connecticut,” says Alicia Barton, president and CEO of FirstLight. “Borrego has a long track record of bringing best-in-class renewable energy projects to life, and this partnership will allow FirstLight to build upon our leadership position as the largest owner and operator of energy storage and renewable energy in New England.”

The new collaboration will focus on developing solar and storage at FirstLight’s existing hydropower facilities in a way that centers reliability, affordability and equity. FirstLight already operates the largest portfolio of renewable energy generation projects in New England, and with this partnership, it will advance the company’s mission of creating an electric grid that is clean, affordable, reliable and equitable.

“Borrego’s partnership with FirstLight will help create innovative hybrid renewables solutions in New England – combining solar and energy storage resources with existing generation,” states Jared Connell, VP of project development in New England for Borrego. “This kind of bold thinking around aggressive decarbonization is a big reason why we’re excited to work with FirstLight.” The new storage and solar assets are poised to bring flexibility to FirstLight’s existing hydropower portfolio in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The strategic partnership will also bring a new generation of hybrid renewable energy resources to serve New England’s grid.

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The Garland solar facility in California where one of the BESS is located. Image: Southern Power.

Southern Power has turned two four-hour battery energy storage systems (BESS) totalling 640MWh at two of its solar facilities in California online.

The Garland Solar Facility Battery Storage in Kern County (pictured) is a 88MW/352MWh BESS while the BESS at Tranquillity Solar Facility in Fresno now has a 72MW/288MWh of storage capacity. The solar parks both have a maximum output of 205MW and have been operational since 2015/16.

The resource adequacy capacity benefits of both BESS are being sold under a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the California’s big three investor-owned utilities along with SDG&E and PG&E. SCE also has a PPA for the electricity and renewable energy credits (RECs) from Garland.

The Resource Adequacy programme is designed to ensure load-serving entities in California have sufficient capacity to meet their peak load with a 15% reserve margin as a buffer to prevent outages. It needs to be delivered in four-hour blocks, often during evening peaks, making four-hour systems increasingly common.

Rosendin Electric built the sites while Mitsubishi Power Americas supplied the equipment and will service the project under a 20-year service agreement. Powin Energy Corporation supplied the batteries.

The press release does not specify it but indicates that the solar parks will charge the batteries, making the projects true solar-plus-storage rather than just colocation sharing a grid connection. Southern Power has been asked for a clarification on this and this story will be updated to reflect any response.

The storage additions to the solar facilities were first announced a year ago, as reported on by Energy-storage.news. The battery and solar parks mentioned both count AIP Management and KKR as investors (KKR inherited the stake through its acquisition of Global Atlantic Financial Group last year).

At the time of the announcement in February, Southern Power president Bill Grantham said the colocated solar and storage projects would be the two of the first such projects to operate in the California market. In this week’s commissioning announcement, however, he only said it would be the first for the utility itself.

Another massive colocated project, the Edwards Sanborn Solar-plus-Storage with a 2,445MWh BESS, is due to come online in 2022 and 2023.

The California ISO grid had 2,607MW of battery storage connected as of January 31, 2022, the last figures available, around 6% of its stated resource adequacy net qualifying capacity.

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An Enel X-installed battery storage system at the University of Massachusetts, US. Image: Enel X.

Enel X will participate in a pilot project in Ontario, Canada, aggregating together a combination of behind-the-meter battery storage and demand response to create firm, reliable resources for the grid. 

The digital and smart energy services arm of Italy-headquartered multinational energy company Enel is collaborating with the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) and the regulator, Ontario Energy Board for the pilot. 

Enel X already manages around 150MW of demand response capacity in the Ontario markets and over 60MW of battery storage either contracted or already operational.

That latter figure includes a 20MW/40MWh behind-the-meter (BTM) battery energy storage system (BESS) it is building and installing at a petrochemical refinery complex for Imperial Oil. As reported by Energy-Storage.news, construction began on that project in February.

As with many other BTM but often quite large BESS systems installed in Ontario, that project helps Imperial Oil significantly reduce its energy costs by reducing the site’s exposure to peak periods. Industrial entities get charged a premium for their use of power at peak times under Ontario’s Global Adjustment Charge (GAC) scheme.

The project for Imperial Oil will be the largest BTM system in North America according to Enel. It will be among the assets aggregated into the pilot announced today. 

The reasoning behind the pilot is that while Ontario’s installed base of BTM batteries and demand response enrolments are growing, distributed energy resources (DERs) such as they are, are not able to contribute directly to grid stability and energy security via IESO administered markets (IAMs).

They are prohibited from participating due to existing rules. As with the US — where the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has determined through FERC Order 841 and FERC Order 2222 that batteries and other DERs should be able to access wholesale markets — this could be about to change.

Enel X will collaborate with businesses to aggregate up to 76.6MW of energy load, from 14 different sites that host BTM battery storage and demand side response (DSR).

Over the two-year pilot, the ability of aggregated DERs to provide significant energy load reduction, serve as firm and reliable energy resources to the grid and enhance the province’s electricity system will be demonstrated. 

“Large energy users in Ontario continue to make significant commitments to reducing emissions, recognising emissions reductions not only as an opportunity to make operations more sustainable but an opportunity to manage their energy costs,” Enel X North America head Surya Panditi said. 

“It’s critical that we continue to unlock these businesses’ energy resources to reduce demand on the grid, lower energy costs, improve sustainability, and deliver economic value.”

‘Facilitating meaningful innovation’

The project is being supported by the OEB’s Innovation Sandbox, which allows innovators and entrepreneurs to test out everything from new ideas and products to services and business models for the gas and electricity sectors.

It will also get CA$3.3 million (US$2.65 million) financial support from IESO’s Grid Innovation Fund, which has since 2005 assisted innovations that could help lower the costs of electricity in Ontario through better energy management or aiding reliable operation of the grid. 

The fund is currently running 15 active projects according to the IESO’s website, including a carbon-free microgrid project by Ameresco which supplies heat, cooling and electricity to a secondary school and Canada’s first “fully-merchant grid-scale energy storage facility,” by NRStor, which uses BESS technology as a non-wires alternative to help grid reliability.   

“We need to facilitate meaningful innovation by utilities and others, and protect consumers as the energy sector transforms. Projects like these – and the kind of support that the Innovation Sandbox offers – provide insight into emerging challenges in the sector, as well as the solutions that can tackle those challenges,” OEB CEO Susanna Zagar said. 

Ontario’s electricity demand grows at a rate of about 1.7% each year, largely driven by industrial facilities, IESO president and CEO Lesley Gallinger said. The pilot will help show how those businesses can “better participate in the electricity sector, securing a new revenue stream while contributing to a reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity system in Ontario,” Gallinger said. 

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Solargis, a solar data and software service company, has launched a software platform designed specifically for visualization, quality management and analysis of solar data. Solargis Analyst, developed in-house by the Solargis data analysis team, empowers solar engineers and decision-makers to improve the efficiency of complex resource analysis, identify and fix errors in measurements, and improve their technical and financial decisions.

Solargis Analyst has been developed to work with solar measurements for over 1,000 sites worldwide. The early development process has been supported by the solar resource analysis team at pilot customer Iberdrola. Solargis Analyst provides a single user-friendly platform for effective management, visualization and analysis of solar resource and meteorological data – significantly reducing analysis time, simplifying complex data analysis procedures and facilitating teamwork.

In turn, the platform enables users to tackle all the most common quality management challenges, including unreliable, incomplete and inconsistently formatted data, while meeting demand from the industry for tools specifically based on solar physics and advanced data science.

In combination with the technical support and consultancy services already offered by Solargis, this ultimately enables solar PV stakeholders to increase confidence in financial transactions using validated data, and improve the accuracy and transparency of their performance assessments.

“As we aim to conduct best-practice solar measurement and data analysis campaigns for our growing global asset base, it’s imperative that we empower our solar resource analysis team, so that we can collectively have confidence in the quality of the data that underpins our strategic decision-making,” says Elena Rodríguez, a solar resource analyst at Iberdrola and a pilot user of Solargis Analyst. “Solargis has successfully delivered a software platform that helps us meet this objective and will no doubt contribute to improved data quality standards across the sector.”

As solar portfolios grow in size and complexity, so does the challenge of managing the consistency and quality of measured solar data streams during project development and operation. The scale of this challenge is significant, as most solar projects worldwide suffer in some way from unreliable solar resource data.

In particular, solar resource analysts face a constant struggle to reconcile ground-based measurements with satellite-model time series. Errors in solar measurements affect the accuracy of performance estimates, ultimately impacting financial returns. Furthermore, data quality issues also affect long-term operational decision-making, where inaccurate inputs hamper effective development and management of solar portfolios. Despite these concerns, it is estimated that 70% of solar resource analysts worldwide are still using spreadsheets or other non-specialist tools designed for other technologies to manage their solar data.

“Solargis Analyst is a tool that has been developed by solar resource specialists for solar analysts and decision makers,” adds Marcel Suri, CEO of Solargis. “Our team grapples daily with the challenges faced in reconciling inconsistent ground-based measurements with satellite time-series, and we have aimed to distil 20+ years of our experience in the field into software that will dramatically increase the efficiency of solar data visualization, analysis and quality management.”

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KCE NY 1, developed by Key Capture Energy, New York’s first grid-scale battery project. The state aims to have 6GW by 2030. Image: Key Capture Energy.

Renewables investment and development group Nala Renewables is developing four new battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in New York state totalling 280MW by mid-2024.

Nala is delivering the projects through a development services agreement with New York-based power and infrastructure developer Rhynland Energy. The sites in New York ISO Zone K (Long Island) have been procured and the interconnection and entitlement work has started.

“Rhynland Energy is very pleased to be working with Nala Renewables, which is owned by two world-class energy investors, on BESS projects that will help provide much needed dispatchable capacity on Long Island and will support the development of renewable resources in New York State,” said Gus Hadidi, Managing Director, Rhynland Energy.

The state recently doubled its energy storage deployment target by 2030, from 3GW to 6GW, when it aims to generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources. Nala’s projects, if delivered at that power, will provide just under 5% of that 6GW figure.

The target will be reached by enabling market reforms and procurement mechanisms that capture the full benefits of energy storage, according to New York State of the State Address book issued when the new target was announced in January.

One scheme which is incentivising large, front-of-meter energy storage is the Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) programme, or Value Stack. It rewards projects that can deliver energy to the grid when most needed by paying them an hourly aggregate rate.

Nala is a joint venture between commodity trader Trafigura and IFM Investors and recently made headlines for delivering what will be the largest BESS in Belgium when it opens later this year.

Rhynland Energy was founded in 2019 and, according to its entry on the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST) trade association’s site, is a 50% partner in a 45MW/135MWh storage system project in Ontario, Canada.

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