Executives from the EBRD and the national public utility ESM recently visited the facility to check the progress of the project, which is already well advanced.

North Macedonia’s first large-scale photovoltaic (PV) plant is already under construction, and about to be completed. The Oslomej solar project, financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has been built alongside a coal-fired power plant located in Kichevo and is equipped with eight Ingeteam solar inverters of 1,400 kW each.

This PV plant is the first phase of a larger project that includes the construction of hundreds of MWs of PV power plants, which are planned to be announced in the upcoming months. This first phase of 11.7 MW of installed power has been built by Europower Solar, belonging to the Turkish group Girisim Elektrik A.S.

Executives from the EBRD and the national public utility ESM recently visited the facility to check the progress of the project, which is already well advanced. Future PV plants to be developed to complete the project pipeline on this location will be built on a former coal mine.

The Oslomej project is an important milestone for North Macedonia, since it marks the firm commitment of the country’s government to the energy transition towards a cleaner generation model, as reflected in the energy law approved by the government in December 2020.

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The Gemini Project near Las Vegas, Nevada, US. Image: Quinbrook.

Quinbrook’s solar and storage developer Primergy has chosen the equipment and construction partners for its US$1.2 billion Gemini Project in Nevada, US, which will have a 1,416MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).

Kiewit Power Constructors Co. will be the Gemini project’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner and IHI Terrasun Solutions will deliver and integrate the BESS. The project is expected to be completed in late 2023 and start operations soon after.

Primergy says the BESS will have a capacity of 1,416MWh, making it easily one of the largest solar-plus-storage projects in the US and, by extension, the world.

David Scaysbrook, Managing Partner of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners which launched Primergy in 2020, commented:

“The Quinbrook and Primergy teams have worked diligently to evaluate each supplier’s credentials and track record from an ESG perspective in accordance with Quinbrook policies. This includes detailed supply chain investigation and materials sourcing to ensure we have procured responsibly, especially in a challenging market and regulatory environment for solar and storage equipment.”

The Gemini project’s 1.8 million bifacial solar modules, for which Maxeon was chosen as supplier last year, will provide 690MWac/966MWdc of solar power, enough to power the entire city of Las Vegas, Primergy said.

Primergy has already had a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Berkshire Hathaway-owned utility NV Energy in place for Gemini. The partnership between the two companies is extensive with 1,300 MWac of operational solar and 3,330 MWh of BESS under contract between them.

The company says it has made significant efforts to minimise the impact of the project’s footprint on local flora and fauna, including creating the industry’s first Desert Tortoise Relocation Plan in partnership with biologists.

Other notably large solar-plus-storage projects include utility Florida Power & Light’s recently completed Manatee project which has a 900MWh solar-charged BESS and developer Terra-Gen’s Edwards Sanborn project in California. Terra-Gen is building Edwards Sanborn in phases, hoping to eventually reach 760MW PV and 2,445MWh of BESS, and has already reached financial close for 346MWac PV and 1,501MWh of battery storage. Part of that project, which has multiple off-takers, is already online.

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The Battery Passport initiative is part of a raft of upcoming legislation to be voted on in the EU parliament. Image: Flow Batteries Europe.

Trade body Flow Batteries Europe (FBE) has written to EU legislators imploring them to include its members’ products in the scope of upcoming Battery Passport regulations.

The Battery Passport scheme will mean that all components and systems that go into a battery’s production will have to be traceable, ensuring the social and environmental sustainability of energy storage.

But the current proposal, part of a raft of upcoming legislation around making the battery sector more sustainable – ‘Sustainable Batteries Regulation’ – focuses on batteries with internal storage, which excludes other technologies like flow batteries.

Anthony Price OBE, Secretary-General of Flow Batteries Europe, commented: “Flow batteries already present strong sustainability benefits, and the industry is willing to push them even further. However, we need a signal from the legislators. The European Union must put in place the right investment and legislation for long-duration energy storage to thrive.”

The FBE sets out commercial and environmental concerns in a position paper. The first issue is that the current proposals may be seen as giving an unfair advantage to internal storage batteries over other types, and may also distort the flow battery market itself.

Because many of the Battery Passport’s key disclosure requirements like carbon footprint, safety and supply chain due diligence are already requested by both flow and lithium battery customers, a standardised and widely-accepted list of information would help the industry. But implementing this, which the scheme does, for only one technology implies that technology is preferred over others.

An example it highlights is awarding Passport-included batteries a carbon footprint performance class which would not be available to the excluded technology.

Within the flow battery sector itself, it might also give an unfair advantage to producers who decide not to collect and make available such information without an explicit requirement to do so. It raises the possibility of cheaper flow battery products with lower environmental standards from outside the EU flooding the market.

A second issue raised by FBE is an environmental one and relates to something raised by many delegates and speakers at Energy Storage Summit 2022 last week in London. It says that ‘renewable gaps’ in one local grid studied lasted for 8-10 hours and not just the 1-2 hours that short-duration storage could address.

It also argues that flow batteries already score well on sustainability with long cycle life meaning 20-year-plus lifetimes, which further bolsters the argument to include them in carbon footprint performance rankings.

It finishes the paper by saying that flow batteries shouldn’t be included under all of the requirements since some are only relevant for technologies like lithium-ion.

It recommends including flow batteries for “…key sustainability requirements of the Battery Passport, such as the carbon footprint calculation, safety and supply chain due diligence”.

Energy-storage.news has asked the European Commission’s press team to address these points and will include their response when it is received.

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US President Joe Biden. Image: Flickr user Phil Roeder.

President Joe Biden’s first State of the Union (SOTU) address included strong messaging on the importance of both supply and demand side measures to support clean energy and its role in the US economy. 

That included emphasis on renewables and tax incentives, urging Congress to pass proposed budgetary measures that would enable investment in both the supply chain and deployment of solar and wind — including doubling the production of both — and lowering the price of electric vehicles (EVs). 

Tax incentives on the table as part of the bipartisan Build Back Better bill include the investment tax credit (ITC) for standalone energy storage, which has been much talked-about here on Energy-Storage.news and elsewhere. The ITC, including a direct-pay option, would turbocharge the energy storage industry in the country, reducing the cost of upfront investment by around a third, with analysis firm Wood Mackenzie having forecast this could create a 20% uplift on deployments. 

“Let’s provide investments and tax credits to weatherise your homes and businesses to be energy efficient and you get a tax credit; double America’s clean energy production in solar, wind and so much more,” Biden said in his speech.

Measures to combat the climate crisis would reduce average household energy costs by US$500 a year, he added. 

The president also reiterated calls for strengthening domestic supply chains of key materials, components and technologies, particularly in light of the pandemic-related delays caused to supply chains everywhere which he said highlighted the importance of being able to establish some self-reliance versus importing a large majority of materials.

While Biden’s speech made semiconductors as an example to directly reference, mentioning Intel’s US$20 billion semiconductor ‘mega site’ factory which the company is building in Ohio, Biden has previously focused on the importance of batteries and battery materials for EVs and grid storage. 

‘Decarbonisation linked to global and national security’

In 2021, Biden had “bolted out of the starting gate to address the climate crisis as the emergency it is,” in rejoining the Paris Agreement, setting climate targets and signing the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Dan Lashof, US director of non-profit research group World Resources Institute said in response to the SOTU speech. 

“Despite Biden’s efforts, the US is not on track to achieve its ambitious climate targets and avert the worst climate impacts. It’s time for the U.S. Congress to catch up. Congress should heed Biden’s call to pass a climate-smart budget package to create millions of good-paying jobs in different sectors, including clean energy, electric transportation, building energy efficiency and more,” Lashof said.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published this week made it abundantly clear that “the world cannot afford for President Biden to slow down,” Lashof said.

“President Biden urged Congress to pass our clean energy tax package. This is our last chance to prevent the most catastrophic effects of the climate crisis, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has provided a stark reminder this week of the urgent need to free ourselves from the need for oil and gas from despots,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden said.

“Enacting our package of clean energy tax incentives, which would lower emissions by the power sector by more than 70%, is essential for the climate, family budgets, and global security.”

In a further statement, Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, said the package of clean energy tax incentives is first and foremost a way to drastically lower carbon emissions, but it would also reduce energy costs and lessen the US’ reliance on foreign oil and gas, “including from authoritarian regimes,” bolstering national security and diplomatic strength. 

Similarly, Heather Zichal, CEO of the American Clean Power Association (ACP) — which has since the beginning of this year been merged with the national Energy Storage Association (ESA) — said the SOTU speech was “emphatic and unmistakably clear about the urgency of rapid clean energy investment”.

“The invasion of Ukraine reminded us that bullies like Vladimir Putin can play games with energy to hold countries hostage. This week we also heard the world’s leading climate scientists tell us that our planet is warming at an alarming rate,” Zichal said. 

“The way out of both of these crises is to rapidly scale affordable, reliable clean energy everywhere. We join the President in urging Congress to take action on critical investments and tax credits for the renewable energy industry that have broad bipartisan support. Quick action will create good jobs and allow the rapid deployment of clean energy projects in all 50 states.”

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Powin’s Centipede hardware allows customers to combine multiple Stack 750E units. Image: Powin Energy.

US large-scale solar PV and energy storage project company Borrego has chosen Powin Energy as supplier of battery storage, with the pair signing an 800MWh supply agreement.

It follows an announcement in February from Powin of framework agreements signed with four other developers for 5.8GWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) to be supplied in 2022-2024. 

Between those deals and the latest Borrego agreement, Powin’s contracted pipeline for delivery is now more than three times the 2,000MWh of BESS the Oregon-headquartered manufacturer and systems integrator has built in the near-decade since its business launched. 

Powin’s Stack750E battery storage stack product will be used for Borrego’s projects. Stack750E is Powin’s modular stack solution, which fits into the company’s Centipede hardware platform — a way of combining multiple battery storage units.

Up to 200MWh of storage can be packed into a single acre footprint using Centipede, Powin claimed as the platform went onto the market last November, while the Stack750E is particularly well-suited to two-hour to four-hour duration applications. 

Borrego will use the Stack750E at utility-scale US projects featuring either standalone BESS or hybrid solar-plus-storage.

The developer, which also has operations and maintenance (O&M) and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) arms to its business is perhaps better known for its activities in solar PV, but has also since 2016 got 490MWh of utility-scale and commercial and industrial (C&I) battery storage in design, construction or already in operation. 

Powin referred to large multi-year supply agreements it has in place with China-based battery cell manufacturers CATL and EVE Energy as evidence of the robustness of its supply chain in the face of ongoing global challenges. 

The system integrator recently also said that Centipede hardware will be manufactured by OEM company Celestica out of facilities in Mexico, which brings the battery storage integrator’s assembly and testing much closer to some of its major demand centres in North America.

Slimmed down strategy for Powin and rivals

Powin Energy was ranked fifth worldwide in a survey of energy storage system integrators for its projects completed and planned during 2021, by analysis group IHS Markit. 

In a recent interview with Energy-Storage.news, IHS Markit analyst Oliver Forsyth said that the launch of Centipede is a sign that Powin, like many of its rivals in the industry, is bringing out hardware platforms that simplify the project design and installation process and bring down costs with their modularity and standardisation.

Among those are Fluence, which brought out its Fluence Cube, Wärtsilä has Gridsolv Quantum, and now Powin has Centipede, Forsyth noted. 

“We’re seeing these slimmed down solutions, really trying to optimise space, manage how much balance of plant you need per battery module, making sure that your fire suppression systems is maximised across as many solutions as you can.

“Trying to minimise the containerisation and really trying to slim down on the amount of metal you’re using there, to really try to optimise costs.”

That trend is expected to continue, the analyst said, adding that with its announcement of placing manufacturing in North American territories, Powin will continue to try and minimise costs by building solutions “as locally as possible. 

A competitive advantage Powin Energy has that other system integrators and new entrants to the market may also try and follow is that the Oregon-headquartered company has its own battery management system (BMS) technology, Forsyth said. 

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Jack W. Hanks

MMEX Resources Corp., a development-stage company focusing on planned hydrogen and ultra clean fuel projects with carbon capture, has completed additional site acquisitions of 632 acres for its West Texas projects, bringing its total land ownership to 1,082 acres.

“We announced on February 22, 2022 that, along with Polaris Engineering, we had completed significant milestones on the technology timeline for our UltraClean Refinery project, and we have received permit approval for the project by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on February 18, 2022,” says Jack W. Hanks, president and CEO of MMEX Resources Corp.

The acreage will enable the company to source its solar complex as well as have the space for MMEX Resources Corp.’s ultra clean fuels refinery and green hydrogen project. The company estimates it can potentially build another 97 MW DC of solar power with extra 632 acres, Hanks adds.

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The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) reports that the state’s solar market surpassed 150,000 installed systems in 2021. Despite ongoing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, over 13,800 solar installations commenced commercial operations in New Jersey in 2021, totaling more than 305 MW DC and contributing to a statewide cumulative capacity exceeding 3.8 GW, providing power for over 150,000 New Jersey homes and businesses. A record of over 1.6 GW of projects in the pipeline provides assurances of continued strong development over the coming year.

“After a tremendous year, the future is especially bright for solar energy in New Jersey, and that’s because of our emphasis on working collaboratively with stakeholders to develop policies that advance our ambitious clean energy goals while supporting overall market health,” says Joseph L. Fiordaliso, NJBPU’s president. “By modernizing our solar programs over the past year and maintaining our focus on ratepayer affordability, we are ensuring the strength and long-term viability of New Jersey’s thriving solar industry. We are also looking ahead to the development of new programs for grid-scale and dual-use solar, as well as a permanent program for community solar.”

New Jersey’s solar market achieved various major policy milestones throughout 2021, including transitioning from the state’s legacy Solar Renewable Energy Certificate (SREC) market to a new long-term incentive through the Successor Solar Incentive (SuSI) Program. The SuSI Program is comprised of a competitive incentive for grid supply and net-metered projects greater than 5 MW, and a fixed incentive primarily for net-metered projects under 5 MW and community solar projects. Board Staff will continue its stakeholder engagement over the coming months to define the competitive process. Once fully implemented, the SuSI Program is anticipated to provide incentives to twice the amount of annual installed solar, at approximately half the per-MWh cost to ratepayers.

The Transition Incentive (TI) Program, which closed to new registrations on August 27, 2021, set a new record with over 12,570 projects in the pipeline seeking incentives for over 1,600 MW DC of capacity. This includes the 105 new community solar applications granted conditional approval to participate in Program Year 2 of the Community Solar Energy Pilot Program. These community solar projects represent 165 MW DC in planned capacity, more than twice the amount of capacity approved in Program Year 1.  Additionally, 18 “subsection (t)” projects proposing to construct more than 365 MW DC on brownfields and landfills submitted applications for conditional certification before the August 27 deadline. The board will consider these applications for approval into the TI Program pipeline in 2022.

In 2021, the board also initiated a Grid Modernization Proceeding to engage stakeholders on current distribution grid interconnection policies and processes, and to solicit ideas for potential improvements to enable faster grid modernization and higher levels of distributed energy resource (DER) integration.

Staff expects another busy year in 2022 as the board works to develop and launch several new solar programs, including the SuSI Program’s Competitive Solar Incentive (CSI) Program for grid supply and large net-metered solar, a Dual-Use pilot program, and a permanent community solar program.

In July 2021, Gov. Phil Murphy signed both the Solar Act of 2021 (Solar Act, L. 2021, c. 169), which sets a framework for ongoing growth in the grid supply, net-metered and community solar markets, as well as the Dual Use Solar Act (L. 2021, c. 170), which directs the board to establish a pilot program for installing solar on unpreserved farmland while maintaining active agricultural or horticultural operations. Throughout 2022, and in close collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the board will conduct robust stakeholder engagement to gather input from New Jersey solar market participants on the implementation of both laws.

The board anticipates future stakeholder engagement and program rollout, including the Competitive Solar Incentive Program with Staff Straw Proposal in spring 2022 and the first solicitation planned to occur prior to the end of the year. For the Solar Siting Criteria for CSI Program, the Staff Straw Proposal is expected in spring 2022 while the Permanent Community Solar Program will have the Staff Straw Proposal in spring 2022 and planned permanent program established in 2022. Finally, the Dual-Use Solar Pilot Program will have the Staff Straw Proposal in summer 2022 and the first solicitation anticipated to occur prior to the end of the year.

Image: Photo by Nuno Marques on Unsplash

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The hybrid renewable power station at Jabiru. Image: EDL.

Two recently completed hybrid projects in Australia have enabled a gold mine and a remote township to run at 50% or more average penetration of renewable energy. 

In both instances, the integration of battery energy storage systems (BESS) has been key to achieving the high threshold of solar and wind use and at times will enable the mine and township to run at 95% – 100% renewable energy.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) said last week that the microgrid at Agnew Gold Mine in Western Australia, has been successfully operating since it went online in November last year.

The project received AU$13.5 million (US$9.87 million) funding support from ARENA, which has also supported similar projects elsewhere in the country — at Weipa, a bauxite mine owned by Rio Tinto and DeGrussa, a copper and gold mine owned by Sandfire Resources. 

The first example of a remote microgrid at a mining site in the country to incorporate wind turbines as well as solar PV, 18MW of wind turbines are now paired with a 4MW solar PV plant at Agnew Gold Mine. Also on site is a 13MW/4MWh BESS, along with some gas and diesel generators (21MW) which remain in standby mode to provide backup.

As Energy-Storage.news reported when initial phases of the project went into operation in September 2020, the BESS was supplied by French battery manufacturer and system integrator Saft, a subsidiary of energy major TotalEnergies.

Saft’s Intensium Max 20-ft containerised BESS equipment was used, integrated with power conversion system (PCS), transformers and MV switchgear in separate containers. The batteries help maintain power quality to mining operations while also providing spinning reserve to maintain the microgrid’s stability, which further minimises the need for thermal generators to keep running. 

Stuart Mathews, executive VP of Gold Fields, which owns the mine, described the project as a “testament to what can be achieved by taking courageous decisions and demonstrating true leadership in how we can sustainably energise our mines in remote environments,” and added that it could provide a framework for similar projects. 

Sustainable energy project company EDL carried out the project. The company’s CEO James Harman said it had been brought online on time and on budget despited bushfires and pandemic-related issues.

EDL said the microgrid is achieving its required 99.9% reliability criteria, enables between 50% and 60% renewable energy penetration. At times that figure is as high as 95%.

Northern Territory township runs 100% on solar in daytime

EDL also announced in February the completion of a solar-battery-diesel power station project in the township of Jabiru, a remote area in Australia’s Northern Territory. 

It has a 3MW/5MWh BESS and 3.9MW solar PV plant with 4.5MW diesel generators. 

Jabiru is aiming to become a sustainable tourism and services hub for the region and the project will support those aims. During the daytime, the hybrid system draws 100% on renewable energy, with the battery kicking in from the evening, supported by diesel backup, Harman said. 

This means that over the course of a year, Jabiru will run on 50% renewables — in line with the Northern Territory’s state government target to reach 50% renewable energy by 2030. 

EDL said it has now done four hybrid renewable projects of this type and the Jabiru project in particular leaned on what the company had learned from its project for Coober Pedy, a town in remote South Australia which is off-grid.

Coober Pedy runs on an average of 75% renewable energy since completion of EDL’s project and has on one occasion since 2017 run on 100% renewable energy for four consecutive days.

The Jabiru project was supported with funding from the Northern Territory government. 

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Greenbacker Capital solar project under construction in Washington. Image: Greenbacker Capital via Twitter.

Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company and Blackstone-owned Aypa Power have acquired pre-operational battery energy storage system (BESS) developments totalling 110MW of power.

Greenbacker has purchased a portfolio of two standalone lithium-ion BESS sites and two solar porfolios of up to seven projects, all pre-operational, from developer Borrego.

It marks the renewables asset manager’s first direct entry into the standalone BESS market, two months after it invested in storage-focused developer Delorean Power and two years after it bought the rights to a portfolio of behind-the-meter storage systems from Stem Inc.

The front-of-the-meter storage assets are both in New York and have a combined power/capacity of 10MW/40MWh, with scheduled delivery date of H1 2023. They will participate in New York’s Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) programme for BESS which credits operators for electricity they discharge into the grid. The state has a target of 6GW of energy storage deployed by 2030.

Brendan Neagle, EVP of Project Finance at Borrego commented: “While we have been the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor of record on many Greenbacker projects, this is the first time Greenbacker has bought a significant group of assets from Borrego’s development portfolio.”

The VDER pays out different amounts depending on how valuable the energy is to the network, which is determined by when and where it is generated and fed into the grid. Electricity from solar, storage and other distributed energy resources (DER) is rewarded at an hourly aggregate rate. It favours front-of-the-meter projects which can deliver energy to the grid when most needed without having to consider onsite needs.

Aypa Power buys 100MW project in Virginia

Aypa Power, a Blackstone portfolio company since 2020, has concurrently announced an agreement with developer East Point Energy to buy its 100MW Yadkins project in Chesapeake, Virginia.

Aypa is a battery-storage focused investment company, and has built a 10GW pipeline in North America since entering the sector in 2018.

At the time of Blackstone’s acquisition the firm was called NRStor C&I but has since rebranded. It has not replied to Energy-storage.news’ request for clarification on the system’s duration or underlying battery technology at the time of writing, nor revealed the project’s delivery date. It says the project will help Virginia attain one of the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act of reaching 100% clean energy.

That policy includes a 3.1GW target for energy storage to be deployed by utilities in the state by 2035.

“We are excited to develop the Yadkins project,” said Aypa Power CEO, Moe Hajabed. “Demand for renewable generation continues to grow in Virginia, and storage is needed to provide flexible capacity to better integrate such renewables into the grid.”

Canada-headquartered Aypa Power formed a partnership to work on 300MW – 400MW of North American battery storage projects with engineering and automation technologies firm Honeywell in 2019 when it was still operating under the NRStor name.

Solar portion of Greenbacker’s deal

The solar portion of Greenbacker’s acquisition comprises four distributed community solar projects totalling roughly 12MWdc in northern Illinois, also scheduled for H1 2023, and three in Maine totalling 17MWdc slated for delivery later this year.

Half of the Illinois sites’ offtake will go to small subscribers and participate in the Illinois Shines solar incentive program, which gives subscribers credits on their power bills for using the projects’ solar energy.

The Maine portfolio has been pre-approved for the state’s Net Energy Billing programme which allows consumers to offset their electric bills by the net amount of clean energy they generate on their property or use from community systems.

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Baywa r.e. solar PV plant in Japan. Image: Baywa r.e.

Eni New Energy US has bought a large-scale battery storage project in development in Texas from developer Baywa r.e., along with a utility-scale solar PV plant nearby.

The 200MW/400MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project is at a late stage of development and scheduled to go into operation before the end of next year.

Called Guajillo, the BESS plant will share interconnection to the ERCOT grid with the solar farm, Corazon I, a 266MWdc/200MWac facility which already went into operation in August 2021. 

Baywa r.e. had acquired Corazon I at an early stage of its development back in 2019 and signed a credit agreement for up to US$216.1 million with a consortium of lenders including the North American Development Bank (NADB) to finance its design, construction and commissioning. 

Electricity and renewable energy credits from the solar plant are being sold to retail energy provider Direct Energy through a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) and it also trades in the ERCOT wholesale market.

Guajillo BESS will be charged with energy from the grid at times of high renewable generation and output back to it when demand peaks and renewable production is low. 

Italian energy major Eni has spun out its natural gas and renewable energy arm, Eni gas e luce, and rebranded it Plenitude, with Plenitude’s US division operating Eni New Energy US.

The battery project acquisition marks a big step up for Eni New Energy US. The only operational battery project in its portfolio so far is a 6.6MWh system in Massachusetts. That project was acquired from another Italian company, Falck Renewables, with which Eni New Energy US formed a joint renewable energy and storage development platform in late 2019. 

The platform is called Novis Renewables, and is targeting the development of at least 1GW of onshore wind, solar PV and energy storage by the end of 2023. In creating Novis, Falck handed over a 49% share of 112.5MW of already operational facilities in its portfolio, in North Carolina and Massachusetts. 

Novis led the two transactions with Baywa r.e. 

“These transactions mark a huge step forward in the growth of our renewable capacity in the US market, adding two high value assets to our portfolio,” Plenitude’s CEO Stefano Goberti said.

“The combination of solar plants and utility-scale battery storage is an accelerating new trend that will generate value and support the further penetration of renewable energy into the market.”

Goberti added that Novis is on track to achieve that 1GW goal and highlighted Plenitude’s long-term goals to reach more than 6GW of installed renewable capacity by 2025 and more than 15GW by 2030 worldwide. 

Baywa r.e. will manage operations of Guajillo and Corazon I through its operations services arm. CEO of its US development group Baywa r.e. Solar Projects Fred Robinson said the deal with Eni allowed Baywa r.e. “to reinvest capital in the company’s development pipeline across the country, including projects in ERCOT”.

The rapidly growing US renewables market will “continue to thrive as we see the increasing implementation of utility-scale solar together with storage,” Robinson said. 

Part of the German industrial conglomerate Baywa Group, Baywa r.e. is planning to develop more than 1GW of solar and wind plants worldwide in 2022, with a heightened focus on subsidy-free projects. It has a potential pipeline of 5GW of solar, wind and storage in the Americas, our sister site PV Tech reported this week. 

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