Telstra Energy’s Murra Wurra Wind 1 project in Victoria, Australia. Image: Fluence-Telstra.

Fluence’s artificial intelligence-driven bidding platform will optimise large-scale wind and solar assets in Australia for Telstra Energy, the energy subsidiary of telecoms company Telstra. 

The deal will see the energy storage technology and services company’s Fluence IQ Bidding Application used for Telstra’s 232MW Murra Warra 1 wind farm in the state of Victoria and the Emerald Solar Park 88MW solar PV plant in Queensland, Fluence said on 23 February. 

Also this week, Fluence announced that it has supplied a 10.8MW battery energy storage system (BESS) solution for renewable energy infrastructure investor Greencoat Renewables at the latter’s 20MW Killala Community Wind Farm in Ireland. 

The Telstra contracts join a growing portfolio of asset optimisation deals Fluence has in place, after it signed 2,744MW of Fluence IQ digital contracts in 2021 and another 250MW booked in the first quarter of its 2021 financial year. Earlier this month a 1.1GW deal to optimise solar PV assets in the US for AES Corporation, one of its parent companies, was also announced. 

The rapid expansion of the company’s digital division has come since it acquired energy storage artificial intelligence and software provider Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) in 2020 and netted a major contract to bid a 182.5MW battery system into California’s CAISO wholesale markets in February 2021.

Its diversification into optimising the operation and market-facing activities of renewable energy assets has been a big part of that strategy, with over 4.7GW optimised and contracted in the two markets the offering is currently available in, CAISO and Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM). 

In an interview published this week on Energy-Storage.news, Fluence EMEA growth and market development director Julian Jansen said that there are plans to roll the Fluence IQ platform out for global availability during 2022. 

“The bidding software is a critical part of the ecosystem that we are building that is helping customers change the way they power their world,” Jansen said.

“It really helps renewable asset owners and operators to optimise the bidding and dispatch and make better, data-driven decisions in an increasingly complex and volatile market.”

Fluence has claimed its bidding platform can enable a revenue uplift of 10% for renewable energy facilities over a 12 month period and several times as much for battery storage assets.  

It uses available data to make price forecasting and optimisation decisions to control asset participation in wholesale market opportunities. 

“We are very pleased to be working with Telstra Energy to maximise the performance of two of its key sources of clean energy and providing them a solution to navigate the volatility and complexities of Australia’s energy market,” Fluence chief digital officer Seyed Madaeni said.

“The NEM’s shift to ‘five-minute settlement’ (5MS) last year, where the market is both dispatched and settled at five-minute intervals, requires renewable energy assets to have extremely accurate price forecasting abilities to ensure they avoid any adverse pricing events.”

Company’s third Irish wind farm colocated BESS project underway

Meanwhile at Greencoat Renewables’ wind farm, in County Mayo, Ireland, the Fluence BESS has entered the commissioning phase. 

It marks the first investment in energy storage technologies by Greencoat Renewables, and the first of any company managed by Greencoat Capital, a specialist renewable energy infrastructure fund manager.

Once operational, it will help to increase system stability in the Irish electricity grid through participation in energy flexibility markets. The BESS is to make use of Fluence’s Gridstack product, which is designed for grid applications including frequency regulation, flexible peaking capacity and enhanced transmission and distribution services.

The company said it was chosen by Greencoat Renewables based on its “successful track record in deploying complex battery-based energy storage systems with high configurability, and industry-leading reliability and safety standards”.

The BESS is Fluence’s third project involving battery-based energy storage co-located with wind farms in Ireland, and its 10th publicly announced venture in the Irish Single Electricity Market.

Fluence managing director of UK, Ireland & Israel, Dr. Marek Kubik, pointed to how the Irish government has increased the target percentage of renewables in the generation mix in 2030 from 70% to 80%.

“Targeting levels of 5GW offshore wind, 8GW onshore wind and 1.5-2.5GW solar PV, makes it more important than ever for investors and developers of green generation to look at battery-based energy storage technologies as a way of maximising operational, financial and environmental benefits of their assets,” he said.

Another Fluence battery project discussed this week on Energy-Storage.news is the 10MW/20MWh EStor-Lux project in southern Belgium. Partners in the project consortium said that the BESS has been successfully participating in grid services markets for two months after coming online at the end of last year. 

Greencoat wind farm project story by Alice Grundy. It first appeared on Solar Power Portal. 

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Panasonic is expanding the number of homeowners in the U.S. who will gain access to the benefits of Panasonic’s renewable energy solutions portfolio through the promotion of two new Elite and two new Premium level solar installers. Homeowners who purchase from a member of the Panasonic Solar Residential Installer Program can take advantage of the Panasonic AllGuard and TripleGuard warranties, which cover Panasonic solar panel systems for performance, product, parts and labor for 25 years.

Celestial Solar Innovations LLC (Frederick, Md..) and FirstPV (DBA) Solar Union (San Francisco, Calif.) have joined as Premium Installers, which includes exclusive access to qualified sales leads, a library of cooperative marketing assets, training programs and an installer portal.

As Elite Installers, Green Power Energy (Annandale, N.J.) and Capital Remodel & Design Inc. (DBA) Five Star Solar (Elk Grove, Calif.) will gain all the benefits of Premium Installer level as well as first access to new products and rebates, preferred access to product availability and premier pricing.

“The solar industry continues to heat up across the country, and as a result will only become more competitive,” says David Lopez, national sales manager for Panasonic Life Solutions Company of America. “We are proud to equip members of the Panasonic Solar Residential Installer Program with benefits and tools they need in increasingly crowded markets.”

“We are excited about the installers who meet Panasonic’s high standard of excellence, and to promote them in a greater number of U.S. markets,” comments Mukesh Sethi, director of solar and energy storage at Panasonic Life Solutions Company of America.

Image: Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash

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Land in Imperial County, California, where CTR is developing a lithium extraction pilot plant from geothermal brine. Image: CTR.

US President Joe Biden announced a “major investment in domestic production of key minerals and materials” this week, including efforts to strengthen supply chains of lithium and other materials used in batteries. 

Speaking at a virtual round table on Tuesday (22 February) attended by White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy, representatives of various private industry stakeholders and California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, the president said the US must establish and strengthen domestic supply chains.

While Newsom noted his appreciation that Biden was able to attend the event without cancelling, given some of the likely demands on his time. 

“Oh, are you kidding me? We don’t have much going on, you know, other than Russia and Ukraine and — anyway,” Biden joked. 

However, it was China that dominated Biden’s opening remarks, as he noted that close to 100% of minerals used in the US for powering phones, computers, household appliances, electric vehicles and batteries, solar panels, wind turbines and so much more are imported from China. 

In particular, China has cornered the market on many of the materials used in clean energy technologies, he said, which is why Biden has committed to building a clean energy supply chain bearing the ‘Made in America’ stamp.

The event came just over a year since the president ordered an urgent review of supply chain dynamics which led to the president issuing a priority list of actions that needed to be taken.

It is also a couple of weeks since the Department of Energy (DoE) committed to US$3 billion of loan-based funding for upstream battery supply chain activities. Specialist renewable energy industry lawyer Adam Walters of Stoel Rives told Energy-Storage.news that the loans were well-intentioned but would not address the main elements of China’s competitive dominance, including cheap labour costs.

Initiatives directly pertaining to batteries announced at this week’s event included a commercial viability test for sustainable lithium extraction from geothermal brine in California’s Imperial Valley, aka Lithium Valley. 

Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables (BHE Renewables) would take the lead in breaking ground on a demonstration facility. This could result in a multi-billion dollar investment over five years, the White House said. 

BHE Renewables CEO and president Alicia Knapp said that the company is working “to secure the most abundant source of lithium in the United States, using the world’s most environmentally friendly technology, and providing economic and employment benefits in one of the most disadvantaged communities — counties in the country.”

It has already been operating geothermal plants in Imperial Valley for four decades, and that means the company pumps up thousands of gallons of lithium-rich brine to the surface every minute. However, the technology to extract and process the lithium from the brine does not exist, Knapp said, meaning it is simply pumped “right back down into the ground”.

A demonstration plant will come online this April, extracting lithium from brine, supported by a US$6 million California Energy Commission (CEC) grant, while a further DoE grant of US$14.9 million will fund a second phase of the project: converting recovered lithium into battery-grade lithium compounds. 

If those are successful, construction of BHE Renewables’ first plant would begin in 2024 to come online in 2026. 

Silvia Paz, chair of the Lithium Valley Commission, said the hope was that lithium extraction could become a more environmentally friendly process while bringing new economic stimulus to one of California’s most disadvantaged regions. 

The announcement comes shortly after Imperial County local authorities voted in favour of the Lithium Valley Economic Opportunity Investment Plan, which vowed to make the best of the region’s 1,500MW to 3,000MW of new geothermal energy potential and 15 million metric tonnes of lithium. 

The plant would be in the Imperial Valley Salton Sea region, an inland salt lake area. Energy-Storage.news has reported on efforts to establish a lithium extraction pilot plant from 40MW of geothermal fields led by developer Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR).

CTR has said its pilot plant could be up and running by next year and produce around 35,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2025. CTR’s consortium also got a CEC grant for just under US$4.5 million and investors include Bill Gates’ VC group Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Among other supply chain activities discussed at the round table event were a proposed pilot between battery recycling company Redwood Materials and major automakers Ford and Volvo to extract materials including lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel from used batteries, a US$35 million heavy rare earth supply chain grant for industrial magnet manufacturing and more.

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Rendering of an NHOA project in development in Taiwan for parent comany TCC. Image: NHOA.

Italy-headquartered global energy storage and electric vehicle (EV) technology group NOAH, formerly Engie EPS, is expanding in the US market with one project recently going online and two more contracted.

The 10MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Bellingham, Massachusetts, was switched online after commissioning in December. It is part of a solar-plus-storage plant and is now providing services to the New England Independent System Operator (ISO New England). 

The project was delivered for Kearsarge Energy, a renewables project developer, finance and holding company which has also awarded NOAH two more projects totalling 12 MWh capacity. 

“NHOA has provided a highly reliable and competitive solution along with excellent customer service well suited to the needs of the Massachusetts SMART programme. Solar plus storage is a complicated offering and NHOA has been an excellent partner from design to contracting to commissioning. We look forward to more successes,” said Andrew Bernstein, Managing Partner of Kearsarge Energy. 

The SMART programme was introduced to incentivise households to invest in residential or community – I.e. utility-scale but ownership shared amongst local people – solar power by being guaranteed payment by their utility for 10 years (residential) and 20 years (community).

NHOA recently announced comparatively larger deals in the Australian and Taiwanese markets totalling 200MWh and 420 MWh, respectively, as reported by Energy-storage.news.

However, it also had a 240MWh project in Hawaii cancelled by former parent company ENGIE, a few months after ownership of the energy storage company was transferred to Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) and rebranded under its new name. 

TCC acquired two-thirds of its shares, but the company remains listed on the Euronext Paris with a 34.85% free float. 

Its financial results since switching majority owner suggests NHOA may have to some extent switched focus to EVs away from energy storage, or at the very least has grown the latter much faster. 

Two-thirds of its FY 2020 sales of €11.1m (US$12.6 million) were from its storage business line NHOA Energy with the remainder from its ‘eMobility’ segment, eSolutions Free2move.

Fast forward to FY 2021, the proportion of its €33m sales between storage and eSolutions is now 48:52, with storage doubling but eSolutions quadrupling.

Standard Solar, EDF bringing online Massachusetts SMART project

In related news from Massachusetts, developer Standard Solar said this week that a solar-plus-storage project also accredited under the SMART programme in the town of Acton is about to come online.

Standard Solar acquired the project from the development arm of EDF Renewables, which was awarded it in 2018 after a Request for Proposals (RfP) from the nearby Town of Plymouth and Acton Water District. It pairs 4.69MW of solar PV with a 4MWh BESS. The BESS discharges to the grid during times of peak demand, reducing local reliance on fossil fuel peaker plants.

Energy-Storage.news reported at the beginning of this month that DSD Renewables, a solar PV and energy storage developer owned by Blackrock Real Assets has acquired a SMART programme incentivised solar-plus-storage portfolio with 45MW of PV and 88MWh of battery storage from solar developer Borrego. The six-site project is set to begin construction in 2023.

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SMA Sunbelt battery storage inverters and other equipment onsite at Pelham, a large-scale battery storage project in the UK. Image: Statera.

Reaching high levels of renewables is essential to global decarbonisation efforts. Enabling that means rethinking many of the 20th Century principles around which power grids the world over have been designed. Blair Reynolds, SMA America’s product manager for energy storage, discusses the role inverter-based renewable and storage technologies can play in maintaining grid stability.

There is no arguing that synchronous grid-forming technologies are necessary for renewables to supply the bulk of our baseload generation. The importance of this emerging technology will play a major part in the world’s rapidly accelerating clean energy transition.

A recent study by the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory shows that only 24% of generation projects  seeking interconnection from 2000 to 2015 in the United States were actually built.

That trend appears to be worsening.

With the majority of these projects being renewable or hybrid plants, the trend is troublesome, especially given national and regional climate goals.

Some of these projects were likely never going to pan out, but the overall takeaway remains; interconnection queues are becoming increasingly more congested, and approvals are becoming more difficult. 

Breakdown of spinning reserve physics

Inside Climate News reports that PJM officials have recently proposed a two-year moratorium on new interconnection approvals. 

This is in part the result of trying to reach high levels of renewable generation connected to a 20th century bulk power system. This is a system designed around the capabilities and behavior of synchronous rotating generators, whose common speed of rotation generates the grid AC waveform at a common frequency (i.e. 60 Hz).

Grid frequency can be simply described as a measure of the balance of electricity supply and demand across the network.

The concept of synchronous generators working together in an electrical grid. Image: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Nearly all inverter-based resources in service today are grid-following assets, and that means they rely on fast synchronisation with the external grid to tightly control their active and reactive current outputs. If these inverters cannot remain synchronised during grid events or under challenging network conditions, they are unable to maintain controlled, stable output.

Quite simply, we cannot reach 100% renewable generation without modifying the behaviour of a significant number of large-scale, inverter-based resources to mimic the behaviour of conventional synchronous rotating generators.

The deployment of inverter-based resources (i.e. wind, solar & storage) will continue to be a significant component of new generating resource additions in order for governments to reach their climate goals. As a result of the evermore inverter-based generation interconnecting to the bulk power system, the 20th century electric power grid will experience increased strain.

Key metrics

There are two key metrics which are commonly used by planners, manufacturers, and developers to obtain a high-level understanding of a localised power system’s strength and resiliency. Those are short circuit ratio (SCR) and inertia.

Short circuit ratio (SCR)

At a high level, SCR is used to describe the grid ‘strength’ at the point of generator interconnection – meaning how likely is it that the operation of the inverter-based resource itself will impact the stability of the grid.

The industry has seen such examples today, where utility-scale project developers wishing to interconnect inverters are denied approval, due to fears of destabilising an already ‘weak’ power grid. These ‘weak’ parts of the bulk power system are generally described as having low short circuit strength relative to the size of the (proposed) interconnected inverter-based resources.

This description of the electrical system strength refers to the sensitivity of the grid voltage at point of interconnection to fluctuations in a current injection coming from the inverter.

For comparison, in a ‘strong’ system, voltage and power factor are relatively insensitive to changes in current injection from the inverter-based resource, while this sensitivity is higher in a ‘weak’ system which could result in stable operation of the inverter. These ‘weak’ areas could be a location with relatively sparse transmission and few synchronous generating resources nearby. 

Furthermore, the existence of a high amount of grid-following inverter-based resources connected to the system can exacerbate the situation. SCR is routinely applied as a critical criterion in the decision-making process for interconnection studies of new renewable projects.

Inertia

Inertia, conversely, refers to the natural resistance of the system to changes in frequency which could drop if a large power plant or transmission fails.

It’s the inertia within the system which gives the power grid time to rebalance supply and demand by reducing the rate of change off frequency following an unexpected event. Inertia is an excellent indicator of the resiliency of the system to sudden changes.

These are the challenges we face with the wide scale adoption of grid-following inverter-based technologies.

What if inverters could literally inject strength and resiliency into the electric system thereby leaving the electric grid in better condition as a result? Wouldn’t that drastically help overcome the oppositions and concerns associated with interconnecting terawatts of new renewable generation on already strained electrical systems?

Using advanced power electronics and control mechanisms, inverter-based resources including wind and solar (when ideally paired with storage) can quickly detect frequency deviations and respond to system imbalances.

Tapping into electronic based resources for this ‘fast frequency response’ can enable response rates many times faster than traditional mechanical response from conventional generators, thereby reducing the need for inertia.

Synchronous grid-forming inverters can even provide inertia as needed by emulating the physical properties of rotating generators. The result is an injection of strength by increasing SCR. Synchronous grid-forming inverter-based generators can become a drop-in substitution for conventional generation assets in our bulk power system.

Image: NREL.

By emulating the physical properties of rotating synchronous generators through tight software control, grid-forming inverters can essentially replace rotating mass on the bulk power system. 

Here is a simple analogy to explain the situation: Electrical generation today could be compared to tractor-trailer truck driving down the highway. Imagine the truck and its engine represent the large rotational generators that are used to generate the grid waveform. The trailer in this analogy is the aggregate of the inverter-based resources being dragged along for the ride.

Now imagine that the trailer is getting bigger and heavier while simultaneously the truck’s engine is beginning to lose horsepower and torque. Naturally, the towing speed would suffer as a result. The continuation of these trends simply would not be sustainable or productive. This is like the situation facing our electric grids, except that the electric grid can only slow a relatively small amount before it risks catastrophic collapse. 

What can be done?

Imagine if the trailer could push itself and thus reduce the load on the truck towing it along. That’s essentially what synchronous grid-forming technology can do for the electrical grid.

Case study: Cape Cod Energy Storage Facility

Late in 2021, SMA commissioned a first-of-its-kind, 57.6 MW synchronous grid-forming energy storage facility which would not have been allowed to interconnect otherwise.

During the interconnection study review, the ISO recognized that the SCR at the point of interconnection was extremely low (

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President Joe Biden

Executive Order 14017 (E.O.), America’s Supply Chains, signed one year ago, ordered a review of vulnerabilities in our critical mineral and material supply chains within 100 days. In June, the Biden-Harris Administration released a first-of-its-kind supply chain assessment that found our over-reliance on foreign sources and adversarial nations for critical minerals and materials posed national and economic security threats.

President Biden is meeting with administration and state partners, industry executives, community representatives, labor leaders and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to announce major investments in domestic production of key critical minerals and materials, ensuring these resources benefit the community, and creating good-paying, union jobs in sustainable production.

Critical minerals provide the building blocks for many modern technologies and are essential to our national security and economic prosperity. These minerals – such as rare earth elements, lithium and cobalt – can be found in products from computers to household appliances. They are also key inputs in clean energy technologies like batteries, electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.

As the world transitions to a clean energy economy, global demand for these critical minerals is set to skyrocket by 400-600% over the next several decades, and, for minerals such as lithium and graphite used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries, demand will increase by even more – as much as 4,000%. The U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign sources for many of the processed versions of these minerals. Globally, China controls most of the market for processing and refining for cobalt, lithium, rare earths and other critical minerals.

In addition to working with partners and allies to diversify sustainable sources, the reports recommended expanding domestic mining, production, processing and recycling of critical minerals and materials – all with a laser focus on boosting strong labor, environmental and environmental justice, community engagement, and Tribal consultation standards.

President Biden is announcing that the Department of Defense’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program has awarded MP Materials $35 million to separate and process heavy rare earth elements at its facility in Mountain Pass, Calif., establishing a full end-to-end domestic permanent magnet supply chain. Paired with this catalytic public funding announcement, MP Materials will announce it will invest another $700 million and create more than 350 jobs in the magnet supply chain by 2024. Currently, China controls 87% of the global permanent magnet market, which are used in EV motors, defense systems, electronics and wind turbines.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables (BHE Renewables) will announce that this spring, they will break ground on a new demonstration facility in Imperial County, Calif., to test the commercial viability of their sustainable lithium extraction process from geothermal brine as part of a multibillion-dollar investment in sustainable lithium production over the next five years. If successful, this sets the company a path towards commercial scale production of battery grade lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate by 2026. Imperial Valley contains some of the largest deposits of lithium in the world. Once at scale, BHE Renewables facilities could produce 90,000 metric tons of lithium per year.

Redwood Materials will discuss a pilot, in partnership with Ford and Volvo, for collection and recycling of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries at its Nevada based facilities to extract lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite. This builds upon Redwood’s recent announcements including a joint venture with Ford to build a recycling facility in Tennessee and its intention to begin construction on a new cathode manufacturing facility in Nevada in 2022.

Secretary Granholm will discuss DOE’s first-of-its-kind $140 million demonstration project funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to recover rare earth elements and critical minerals from coal ash and other mine waste, reducing the need for new mining. This project will deliver on the work of the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization by creating good-paying manufacturing jobs in legacy coal communities.

She will also discuss $3 billion in BIL funding to invest in refining battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, and battery recycling facilities, creating good-paying clean energy manufacturing jobs.

MP Materials recently announced construction of a rare earth metal, alloy and magnet manufacturing facility in Texas and a long-term supply agreement with General Motors to power the motors in more than a dozen of GM’s EV models. Production will begin next year, with capacity to produce enough magnets to power 500,000 EV motors annually.

In addition to BHE Renewables, Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) and EnergySource Minerals have established operations in Imperial County to extract lithium from geothermal brine. GM will source lithium for EV batteries from CTR. The companies are also working with the state-authorized Lithium Valley Commission to develop a royalty structure that would invest profits from their operations in infrastructure, health, and educational investments for the residents of the surrounding region.

Tesla intends to source high-grade nickel for EV batteries from Talon Metals’ Tamarack nickel project under development in Minnesota. Talon Metals and the United Steelworkers (USW) have established a workforce development partnership for the project to train workers on next-generation technologies in the local community and from mining regions in the U.S. facing declining demand. As part of this partnership, Talon has agreed to remain neutral in any union organizing efforts by USW.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of E.O. 14017 this Thursday, the administration has taken action across the federal government to secure reliable and sustainable supplies of critical minerals and materials, while also upholding the administration’s labor, environmental and environmental justice, and equity priorities.

This year, the Mining Law of 1872 turns 150. This law still governs mining of most critical minerals on federal public lands. The Department of Interior (DOI) announced it has established an Interagency Working Group (IWG) that will lead an administration effort on legislative and regulatory reform of mine permitting and oversight. The IWG released a list of Biden-Harris Administration fundamental principles for mining reform to promote responsible mining under strong social, environmental and labor standards that avoids the historic injustice that too many mining operations have left behind. The IWG will deliver recommendations to Congress by November. They will also host extensive public input and comment sessions to ensure an inclusive process, and will work with the relevant agencies to initiate updates to mining regulations by the end of the calendar year.

Pursuant to the Energy Act of 2020, DOI will update its federal list of critical minerals, listing minerals essential to economic or national security and vulnerable to disruption. To focus the work of federal agencies on sourcing critical minerals, the administration will direct agencies to prioritize the production and processing of minerals necessary to produce key products like batteries, semiconductors and permanent magnets, consistent with our strong environmental, social and labor principles. DOE, DOD and the Department of State signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to better coordinate stockpiling activities to support the U.S. transition to clean energy and national security needs. In October, President Biden streamlined the National Defense Stockpile by signing E.O. 14051 to delegate authority release of strategic and critical materials to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.

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Catalyst Power Holdings LLC, an integrated provider of cleaner energy solutions for the commercial and industrial sector, is launching their ecommerce dashboard for commercial and industrial energy management. The new dashboard utilizes a proprietary technology platform to allow businesses and energy consultants to choose a range of cleaner energy solutions, including custom-priced energy service, connected microgrids and community solar. In addition, companies can access financing options for onsite solar options.

Catalyst Power provides cleaner energy options that allow companies to reduce energy costs, access new revenue streams, meet sustainability goals and ensure energy resilience. With the launch, Catalyst Power now provides a direct-to-consumer online option that allows customers to review and choose options at their own pace.

“Businesses have more energy choices and options than ever before,” says Gabriel Phillips, CEO of Catalyst Power Holdings. “Choice creates opportunities to save money, lock in cost certainty, deliver on ESG goals, and think creatively. Our dashboard helps businesses understand their options and simplify their decisions. The commercial and industrial energy market has been underserved for too long. They are an important part of the economy that deserves access to all the benefits of cheaper, cleaner energy – we’re here to help them.”

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ConnectDER, a company that enables utilities and homeowners to expand access to distributed energy resources (DERs), is launching availability of its Solar Collar for new residential solar installations in Nebraska.

ConnectDER’s simple, affordable meter collar can now be used in solar installations throughout Nebraska Public Power and Omaha Public Power District areas. The ConnectDER Solar Collar is a UL-Listed meter collar that enables rapid interconnection of grid-ready residential PV systems.

“Nebraskans deserve simple, low-cost solar energy,” says ConnectDER CEO Whit Fulton. “They’ll be joining us in building a future where clean distributed energy resources are a core component of a robust, reliable electric power system.  Utilizing our Solar Collars will reduce the cost of installation, make interconnection safer, and enable more distributed clean energy resources on the grid.”

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Standard Solar has acquired a 4.69 MW solar and 4 MWh storage project in the Massachusetts town of Plymouth from EDF Renewables North America. The project received an award from the state’s Solar Massachusetts Renewable Targets (SMART) program, which provides incentives for solar and storage projects.

Located in Acton, Mass., on land owned by the Acton Water District, the Lawsbrook Solar + Storage system is expected to generate 5,866 MWh of clean energy each year. The project is built over the W.R. Grace Superfund Site and was awarded by way of an RFP to EDF Renewables in 2018. This project makes complimentary use of one of the district’s active groundwater well fields, which serves as part of the town’s drinking water supply. The property hosting the project is previously disturbed land from gravel extraction and is encompassed by the larger W.R. Grace Superfund Site. Due to the various environmental sensitivities on the site, permitting the project entailed receiving approvals at various levels of the federal, state and local governments.

“Standard Solar is a leader in forwarding the clean energy movement throughout the nation,” says Eric Partyka, director of business development at Standard Solar. “Adding this solar+storage project to our existing portfolio in Massachusetts underscores our rapid growth. It’s always significant when we connect with a great partner like EDF Renewables and acquire projects that are helping a town like Plymouth and the Acton Water District to capitalize on the multiple benefits of a solar and storage system.”

Standard Solar currently owns and maintains nearly 20 MW in Massachusetts and 280 MW of commercial and community solar projects throughout the United States.

“The Acton Water Solar + Storage project is the first of two projects that EDF Renewables has had the privilege to partner with the Acton Water District on,” states Peter Bay, associate director of business development for EDF Renewables. “We are thrilled to see the project come to fruition, despite numerous permitting and interconnection challenges, and begin conveying benefits to the District and Town of Plymouth. The Acton Water District team have been fantastic partners on the project and have provided ample support in ensuring it’s a successful endeavor. We’re appreciative to have a reputable partner in Standard Solar as the long-term owner of the site.”

“After a few years of hard work by all involved, we are extremely excited to have this renewable energy project coming online,” comments Christ Allen, Acton Water District’s district manager. “In the water supply industry, we keenly understand the impacts of global climate change, and the role that reliance on fossil fuels plays. We’re committed to do our part by lowering our carbon footprint, as water and wastewater treatment are very energy intensive processes. Partnering with EDF Renewables, such a knowledgeable, experienced company, has given us a great deal of peace of mind endeavoring into technology where we have no experience.”

The SMART Program was created in 2016 by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources and is a long-term sustainable solar incentive program designed to advance cost-effective solar development in the state. The new Lawsbrook solar and storage project will help the Commonwealth of Massachusetts reach its Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard as well as their recently codified 2030 and 2050 goals for a statewide clean energy economy.

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Solar Media deputy editor Molly Lempriere moderated the session. Image: Solar Media Events via Twitter.

Standalone storage, demand from commercial and industrial (C&I) customers and new types of grid services will increasingly help drive growth in energy storage in the coming years, but the future mix between battery-based and alternative storage types is still unclear.

That is according to speakers at the Energy Storage Summit 2022 in London, speaking on the ‘What Role Will Storage Play in Filling the Fossil Fuel Retirement Gap?’ panel this morning, chaired by Molly Lempriere, deputy editor of Solar Media titles Current± and Solar Power Portal.

David Post, Head of e-Storage Solutions for the energy transition arm of Italian Enel Group, Enel X, alluding to its recent project with a large oil refinery in Ontario, Canada, said:

“Industrial customers are very interested in how they can become more sustainable, especially in jurisdictions which have a tariff structure to allow you to optimise your energy bill,” he said, adding that energy storage projects for reducing peak charges could have a payback time of just four to five years.

James Li, technical lead for energy storage systems (ESS), at solar inverter manufacturer and energy storage system integrator Sungrow, said that the growing realisation that batteries have numerous roles other than backup power was particularly helping drive demand. He says colocation with solar is a big driver in both Sungrow’s grid-scale and residential segments.

Terry Chen, Head of Overseas Energy Storage Business for Trina Storage agreed, saying that 60% of its market in China and the US is from solar-plus-storage, which he said is more economical than pure solar.

But it is changing, he said: “In the future, we see the standalone storage format as the main one in China and the US as well. People are learning more and more about what they can do with standalone energy storage.”

“But right now, in China energy storage is not cost-competitive compared with other energy sources. We’re aiming for it to be by the end of 2023.”

Dispatchable energy storage = fewer fossil fuel resource requirements

Broadening the discussion around cost performance, Ben Guest, Managing Director at Gresham House said that energy storage needs to be compared with the flexibility provided by other assets like natural gas.

“The evidence is strong that the ability to have dispatchable energy storage that doesn’t require bringing on fossil fuel generation is a pretty important driver and cost driver for the energy storage business case,” he said.

Dr. Neville Towers, Director of Wholesale Markets Optimisation for EDF, said: “There’s a lot of new assets entering the market and making great returns. Dynamic Containment has been great and it’s evolved over time. Initially you committed to a day but now it’s four-hour chunks.”

However, Guest added, there was a clear limit to the depth of the Dynamic Containment market.

The discussion moved on to longer duration storage including non-battery-based technologies.

Enel X’s David Post was sceptical of the business case of pumped hydro (PHES) in most cases while EDF’s Neville Towers called for new thinking around supporting longer duration battery assets that system operators will increasingly need.

Post added that he wished to see more international norms for energy storage, which would help foster communications between different stakeholders along the value chain. He also raised the potential of e-mobility and storage converging to the point where electric vehicles could provide flexibility to the market when not being used for transport.

Guest commented: “Battery energy storage does not solve the whole problem. There will be multiple 100 hour events where batteries can’t run. I think in the future we’ll have natural gas and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). Unsure about hydrogen. Scrubbing emissions from gas is quite proven, for example.”

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