The two projects (pictured) are sited at a Southern California Edison substation in Santa Ana, California. Image: Convergent Energy + Power.

Convergent Energy + Power has celebrated the successful commissioning and start of commercial operations at two battery energy storage system (BESS) projects with a combined capacity of 60MWh in California, US. 

The energy storage developer said yesterday that the two storage systems it financed and developed in California’s Orange County are online, one of 9MW/36MWh and the other 6MW/24MWh. 

The pair are both at a substation belonging to California investor-owned utility (IOU) Southern California Edison (SCE) in the city of Santa Ana.

Convergent has contracted with SCE for them to provide resource adequacy (RA) to the utility — the mechanism through which load serving entities on California’s CAISO electric grid must ensure there is sufficient capacity for reliable delivery of electricity to their customers. 

Resource adequacy needs to be delivered in four hour blocks and often covers the evening peak when solar production tails off, making four-hour duration battery storage systems in California an increasingly commonly deployed asset all over the state. 

For these energy storage systems in particular, there is a strategic locational benefit. Santa Ana is one of the cities in the Los Angeles basin, where much of California’s highest electricity demand is experienced, while most of the power it uses is generated elsewhere. BESS such as Convergent Energy + Power’s can ease the challenge of delivering that power where it’s needed, when it’s needed. 

The developer said both systems will utilise the company’s proprietary energy storage software, called PEAK IQ, which is based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning techniques to establish optimal dispatch and storage of energy.

In an increasingly crowded and competitive space, energy storage developers, system integrators and asset owner-operators are pointing to the strengths of their software offerings to differentiate them for their customers. 

“Modernising our electricity grid is critical to the future of energy and mitigating the climate crisis. Energy storage is essential to reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and Convergent is proud to continue demonstrating its value to customers and communities through innovative partners like SCE in strategic California locations at the forefront of change,” CEO Johannes Ritterhausen said. 

It’s Convergent Energy + Power’s second completed project announcement in California that Energy-Storage.news has reported already this year. In January, a 10MW/40MWh project by the company was brought online for East Bay Clean Energy (EBCE), one of California’s Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) energy suppliers.

The developer also has projects under development in territories including New York, its home state, and has been among those providing large-scale industrial behind-the-meter (BTM) BESS in Ontario, Canada, a market that has been thriving for a couple of years given that industrial consumers of electricity in the province can save big money on their electricity rates through peak shaving.

California continues to be the US’ leading state for battery storage, with gigawatts of four-hour installations already in service or underway in the service areas of the three major IOUs as well as its CCAs. Just in the last few weeks Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) has sought approval for 6.4GWh of third party energy storage contracts and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) has had three projects totalling 664MWh that it will own and operate approved.  

Last week the state’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a US$49 billion clean energy plan, which included the build-out of just under 15GW of BESS.

California is targeting 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045. That’s already one of the most ambitious policy targets in the world, but some individual cities and local authorities are even targeting dates as early as 2030. The role of energy storage in that journey is widely recognised, although much more is being done to foster large-scale BESS than distributed customer-sited BTM storage. 

Continue reading

Five months after the passage of Illinois’ landmark clean energy law, solar businesses have installed enough renewable energy to power 30,000 homes and are building a more diverse workforce with the help of job training programs. Data provided by members of the Solar Energy Industries Association, Illinois Solar Energy Association, and the Coalition for Community Solar Access and the Illinois Power Agency found 2022 is on track to be one of the biggest years for solar energy in Illinois’ history. The renewable energy industry plans to complete more than 8,400 additional solar installations and increase its workforce by nearly 50% in 2022.

The progress is due in large part to the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) that was enacted on September 15, 2021. CEJA sets the long-term goal of 100% clean energy in Illinois by 2050 but also provides immediate steps that help accelerate the renewable energy transition that’s already underway in Illinois.

Data from the Illinois Power Agency shows that 8,052 waitlisted solar projects have moved forward and are expected to be approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission in February. In addition, 250 MW of new community solar projects have been approved; when completed, these projects will allow an estimated 35,000 families to lower their electric bills without installing solar panels.

A survey of solar businesses in Illinois found that more than 2,000 rooftop and community solar projects have already been installed. Illinois businesses will complete more than 8,400 rooftop and community solar projects by the end of 2022. Businesses are hiring rapidly and the workforce in the state is expected to increase 47% by the end of this year.

Renewable energy businesses reported that they have already expanded their work on diversity, equity and inclusion by recruiting from solar job training programs, creating internal committees focused on diversity and hiring consultants and recruiters to guide their diversity efforts.

The Illinois Power Agency maintains an online map of solar projects that participate in the state’s adjustable block program here – roughly 25,000 solar projects have been completed since the program launched in 2017. The agency is currently developing its long-term renewable energy plan that will establish the path for renewable energy growth for coming years. The plan will establish an equity eligible contractor certification and an equity accountability system in the next 12-18 months.

Image: Photo by Chelsea on Unsplash

Continue reading

Soltage LLC’s Iris capital vehicle with Harrison Street has invested in a 31 MW portfolio of one project in Illinois and four projects in South Carolina. The electricity generated from these projects will be sold to municipal, commercial and residential community solar customers, as well as local utilities.

This is the most recent deployment from Soltage’s Iris capital vehicle with Harrison Street, a $250 million partnership announced in March 2021 to deploy 450 MW of solar and storage projects across the United States. This announcement brings the total investment deployed through the Soltage Iris vehicle to 16 total solar facilities and over 60 MW.

“We are proud to announce this investment, building on our 15-year track record of developing and investing in renewable energy assets to serve our diverse base of electricity consumers,” states Jesse Grossman, Soltage’s co-founder and CEO. “Portfolio execution on this scale involves a host of dedicated partners, both local and national, and we are grateful to them as we work to assist the U.S. in its clean energy market transition.” Soltage has raised and invested over $1 billion into clean energy infrastructure since its founding in 2005. The company has developed over 100 clean energy projects and has more than 450 MW total distributed generating capacity under construction and management across the country.

Continue reading

The CPUC said the state’s transmission system would be able to accommodate the increased solar capacity with only minimal upgrades. Image: SJCE / Terra-Gen.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has unanimously approved plans to add more than 25.5GW of renewables and 15GW of storage in the state by 2032 at a cost of US$49 billion.  

Approved last week (10 February) by the CPUC, the plans will see the state add 18,883MW of utility-scale solar, around 6,700MW of wind power, 14,751MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and 1,000MW of demand response resources.

Taken together, these resources would cost US$49.3 billion and would produce a levelised cost of energy of US$18.6c/kWh in California.

The plan adopted a 35 million metric ton (MMT) 2032 electric sector GHG planning target (38 MMT by 2030), which is more stringent than the 46 MMT GHG target that was adopted previously. If realised, it would see renewable resources account for 73% of the state’s energy mix by 2032.

Source: CPUC.

“Today’s decision provides direction for procurement of an unprecedented amount of new clean energy resources. It keeps us on the path toward achieving our state’s ambitious clean energy targets, while ensuring system reliability,” said CPUC commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen.

The CPUC said a preliminary analysis indicates there is “sufficient space for all of these new resources on the existing transmission system, with only limited transmission upgrades needed by 2032”, adding that utility-scale battery storage projects were identified as alternatives to transmission upgrades at a lower cost to ratepayers.

“This finding will be validated at a more granular level by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) in its 2022-2023 Transmission Planning Process (TPP),” CPUC said.

At the start of this month, however, CAISO released a report, which CPUC was involved in making, that said the state would need a US$30.5 billion investment in its transmission system to accommodate the expected 53GW of solar PV that will exist on its network by 2045.

Around the same time, the CPUC decided to indefinitely delay its decision on controversial changes to the state’s net metering laws after widespread criticism of the plans, dubbed NEM 3.0.

Research organisation Wood Mackenzie warned the changes, proposed by the CPUC in December 2021, would severely reduce residential PV’s value proposition in California, cutting its solar market in half by 2024.

This story first appeared on PV Tech.

Continue reading

Closeup of battery modules at Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility. Image: Vistra Energy.

An incident which caused batteries to short has taken offline Phase II of Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility in Monterey County, California, the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) project.

Project owner Vistra Energy said yesterday that the 100MW/400MWh expansion phase of the facility now joins the 300MW/1,200MWh Phase I in being out of action, after the incident late on Sunday (13 February). 

In what appears to be a repeat of what happened in September to Phase I, a sprinkler system released water onto battery racks. 

As before, no one was harmed, but after Phase II’s early detection safety system kicked in, local fire crews were called to the scene, in line with protocols and out of what Vistra described in a brief statement as an abundance of caution. 

The latest incident comes only a couple of weeks after integrated utility and power generation company Vistra issued a report into the situation at Phase I and said it was preparing to bring it back online soon. Vistra has now decided to pause those restart activities. 

In the January report, the cause of overheating of batteries was attributed to a sprinkler system that became active in response to smoke coming from an air handling unit in which a bearing had failed, rather than battery cells going into a thermal incident through internal faults or damage.

The onsite smoke detection apparatus had triggered water to be sprayed at a threshold below what it should have, leading Vistra to conclude there had been an error made in the equipment’s programming. 

A course of corrective actions was being implemented at Phase I, including sealing gaps between the floor levels containing battery racks to prevent water leaking from one down onto the other, testing all the heat suppression equipment thoroughly and reviewing the programming of the Very Early Smoke Detection Apparatus (VESDA).

The early signs are that something similar happened again at Phase II, with leaking hoses having caused the suppression system to release water onto battery racks, which then produced smoke as damage was done to batteries. The suppression system did however contain the event.

Another investigation is now underway to find out what caused the detection system to activate and trigger the chain of events at Phase II, which came online in August 2021. 

Vistra Energy is preparing to expand the facility even further to 750MW/3,000MWh, after signing off-take agreement contracts with California investor-owned utility (IOU) Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) for the next 350MW/1,400MWh phase which should come online by June next year if the agreement is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). 

In a recent interview for our quarterly journal PV Tech Power, Paul Rogers, a former firefighter-turned-subject matter expert in battery energy storage said that for fire crews, fire and explosion incidents will be extremely rare, but could be high risk events when they do occur.

Continue reading

The accelerated scenario forecasts 260GWh of demand annually by 2030 across numerous sectors. Image: RMI / RMI India / NITI Aayog.

Demand for batteries in India will rise to between 106GWh and 260GWh by 2030 across sectors including transport, consumer electronics and stationary energy storage, with the country racing to build up a localised value chain. 

The forecast is offered in a new report published by Indian government think tank NITI Aayog and the global and India offices of non-profit research group Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). 

It comes while a process of evaluation is underway to support the creation of 50GWh of domestic production capacity across up to 10 new facilities making so-called Advanced Chemistry Cells (ACC), through a scheme called the Production Linked Incentive (PLI).

With the nation committing over US$2 billion of financial assistance to India or overseas-headquartered companies that build cell gigafactories, each with at least 5GWh annual production capacity, the report explains the drivers behind this urgent need. 

In addition to a targeted 500GW of new renewable energy capacity to come online by 2030 — a target which the country looks on track to achieve given that it has already reached about 175GW of solar PV and wind — 30% of new vehicles sales should be electric by that time, according to Union Government policies.

Globally, the report’s authors cite BloombergNEF figures that forecast demand for energy storage at US$150 billion annually by the end of this decade. With a high penetration of EVs and stationary energy storage, India alone could represent 13% of that total demand, according to RMI and NITI Aayog.

Growth in the renewable energy market will lead naturally to a big market opportunity for stationary energy storage systems (ESS), given the wide variety of services they can provide and their declining costs mean that ESS are becoming competitive with incumbent technologies.

Broad range of value streams for broad range of stakeholders

Six major drivers are identified for the need to accelerate battery manufacturing within India:

-The centrality of batteries to taking action on climate, in line with India’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) of achieving net zero by 2070 and the meeting of 50% of energy use from non-fossil fuels by 2030.

-India currently imports not only large amounts of fossil fuels but also equipment and materials needed for renewable energy projects like solar PV modules and lithium-ion batteries. Domestic manufacturing would have a positive impact on national energy security. 

-India has 22 out of the 30 most polluted cities in the world for air quality according to an IQAir index. Clean energy and electric transport offer a way to reverse this trend.      

-EV adoption goals will undoubtedly drive greater demand for batteries. 

-Greater involvement in battery manufacturing presents a great opportunity to grow Indian industry.

-Falling battery costs are making their use in a growing number of applications viable. 

The report indexes the attractiveness of market opportunities for batteries in a range of those applications out to 2030: in stationary energy storage, grid support ancillary services, renewables integration, transmission and distribution (T&D) upgrade deferral and commercial behind-the-meter (BTM) will all be highly attractive markets by 2030.

In the case of grid services, it does depend on the ability of battery storage to be enabled by regulations to participate in wholesale markets for ancillary services, which looks increasingly likely to happen. 

There are many different value streams for energy storage for India’s power grid transmission utilities and distribution companies (discoms) that can be tapped, supporting the network’s reliability and efficiency. 

Energy storage can be among assets used to meet demand for electricity at peak hours of consumption, which has until now largely driven investment into peaking capacity from natural gas combustion turbines. 

As is starting to be seen in other markets like the US, utilities can defer the need to invest in distribution system upgrades in areas of the grid that are seeing, or expecting to see, rapid rise in demand for electricity. Similarly, the need to make costly transmission system upgrades could be alleviated using strategically sited energy storage capacity. 

Again, as seen already in many parts of the world, the direct benefit to power sector companies includes smoothing and firming renewable energy output, votage support and frequency regulation ancillary services, black starting generation and the grid after outages or incidents and much more.

US$15 billion annual demand by 2030

According to the India Energy Storage Alliance (IESA), only around 85MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) are in construction or already online in the country, but there is a pipeline of 4.6GWh already (3.3GWh tendered for and 1.2GWh announced).

For the report, two scenarios were produced, one conservative, the other accelerated adoption for batteries: RMI and NITI Aayog said in the accelerated scenario (260GWh) that equates to US$15 billion of demand by 2030, US$3 billion from pack assembly and integration and US$12 billion from cells. 

Even in the conservative scenario (106GWh) the annual market would be worth more than US$6 billion a year. Localising parts of the supply chain could enable the country to capture “significant value”, the report said. 

It is worth noting that although electric vehicles get a lot more media attention, they will only comprise about 40% of that total demand, including freight applications, and grid-scale stationary storage will be about equal, if not more. 

The report is the first of three being produced in a series, with the next two looking at aspects of directly supporting domestic production.  

Part 1 of the report, ‘The Need for Advanced Chemistry Energy Storage Cells in India’ is available from RMI’s website, here.

Continue reading

Carl Rapp

The Timken Co. is providing high-precision drives for what will be the world’s largest single-site solar power plant. Timken’s solar-tracking technology, developed by its Cone Drive subsidiary, will be used to precisely position solar panels in line with the sun for the Al Dhafra PV2 site in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“We partner with leading manufacturers to develop customized solutions that are essential to some of the most significant solar energy projects in the world,” says Carl Rapp, Timken’s group vice president. “Our application engineering expertise is critical to advancing the use of renewable energy around the globe.”

The Al Dhafra facility is expected to become fully operational in 2022. When complete, its 4 million solar panels – controlled by 83,000 Cone Drive high-precision drives – are projected to power as many 160,000 homes across the UAE and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 2.4 million metric tons annually.

Timken entered the solar energy market with the acquisition of Cone Drive in 2018. Cone Drive’s high-precision drives provide tracking and positioning capabilities for photovoltaic (PV) applications, such as the Al Dhafra site, as well as concentrated solar power (CSP) applications.

Timken has invested heavily in research and development for the solar energy market, and the company has built manufacturing, engineering and testing capabilities in both the United States and China. In 2021, Timken consolidated multiple sites into a new, larger campus in Jiangyin, China, to increase production capacity, broaden the product range and improve productivity for precision drives used in the solar energy market.

Continue reading

Aurora Solar, a software platform for solar sales and design, and Mosaic, a financing platform for U.S. residential solar and energy-efficient home improvements, are partnering to further accelerate solar adoption at scale. With this integration, solar installers can seamlessly access their Mosaic account in Aurora to provide homeowners competitive financing options and near instant loan pre-approval for their solar and storage projects.

“We’re always looking for innovative ways to help installers sell faster, with more ease and accuracy,” says Samuel Adeyemo, co-founder of Aurora Solar. “This partnership with Mosaic, combined with Aurora’s Sell suite, will enable installers to instantly quote, sell and provide financing options to homeowners.”

The integration will eliminate more steps to speed up the process for homeowners going solar. Homeowners will now be able to get simple and affordable financing options along with their sales proposal, creating a smoother and more comprehensive solar buying experience.

“The Mosaic platform seamlessly integrates into the tools that solar professionals use every day, so they can quickly and easily offer their homeowners some of the most competitive financing options in the market,” comments Billy Parish, founder and CEO of Mosaic. “Together, we’ll help even more families adopt clean energy solutions, which is a win for homeowners, our industry and the planet.”

Continue reading

American Clean Power Association’s (ACP) The Clean Power Quarterly 2021 Q4 Market Report shows the U.S. surpassed more than 200 GW of total operating utility-scale clean power capacity in 2021, but significant policy issues continue to hold back growth for the industry and threaten the country’s ability to meet emissions goals.

“Surpassing over 200 gigawatts of clean energy is a significant milestone for the United States and shows that we can achieve even more with strong public policy support for the industry,” says Heather Zichal, ACP’s CEO. “Although the U.S. has reached this incredible achievement, more needs to be done, at a faster pace, to reach the climate goals and targets our country needs to achieve. We urge Congress to take action to create a clean energy future that will help create more good-paying American jobs and combat the climate crisis.”

During 2021, there was a 3% decline for clean energy installations compared to 2020’s record year. Over 11.4 GW of projects, originally expected to come online in 2021, slipped to 2022 or 2023 due to a variety of issues. For the solar sector this was due to trade policies and lack of regulatory certainty impacting the availability of solar panels coming into the country. The wind sector faced policy uncertainty, including the expiration of tax credits for wind projects.

The pace of installations fell significantly short of what is required to achieve a net-zero emissions goal. While 27.7 GW is the second largest year on record for combined wind, solar and energy storage installations, it is only 45% of what’s required to stay on track for an emissions-free power sector.

Throughout 2021, the renewable energy sector installed 27.7 GW of new utility-scale wind, solar and energy storage capacity, with 10,520 MW being installed in the fourth quarter. These clean power projects represent $39 billion in investments across the sector. Wind power capacity installations for 2021 totaled 12,747 MW for the year, with 5,409 MW brought online in the fourth quarter. The solar sector overall installed 12,364 MW for the year, including 3,937 MW added in the fourth quarter. Battery storage installations totaled 2,599 MW in 2021, outpacing 2020 by over 1,500 MW. During the fourth quarter, 1,173 MW of battery storage projects were brought online, the first quarter ever to pass 1 GW of new installations.

There are now over 1,000 clean energy projects under development across the country, totaling 120,171 MW of new capacity in the development pipeline. This includes 37,802 MW under construction and 82,369 MW in advanced development.

Despite unclear policy headwinds, U.S. project owners commissioned 606 new project phases across 43 states during 2021, including 168 projects in the fourth quarter. The top five states for new installation additions in 2021 include Texas (7,352 MW), California (2,697 MW), Oklahoma (1,543 MW), Florida (1,382 MW) and New Mexico (1,374 MW).

The top five states for clean power development (by percent of projects under construction or advanced development) include Texas (17%), California (11%), New York (7%), Indiana (5%) and Virginia (5%).

Last year was a record year for clean energy procurement, with 28 GW of power purchase agreements (PPAs) signed in 2021. For perspective, 28 GW of clean energy exceeds the electricity demand of the entire U.S. federal government.

Growth for clean energy is due to several factors, including strong continued demand from consumers. Corporate buyers surpassed utilities in clean energy procurement for the first time, announcing deals totaling over 14 GW in 2021. Utilities signed contracts for over 10 GW of wind, solar and battery storage.

During the fourth quarter, corporate customers signed onto 1,871 MW of power purchase agreements. Pfizer was the top corporate offtaker during the quarter with 310 MW announced, followed by Meta Platforms (Facebook) with 285 MW and PepsiCo announcing 72.5 MW.

Utilities made up 35% of the announced PPA capacity during the quarter, with 19 utilities signing contracts representing a total capacity of 1,994 MW. The 2021 fourth quarter utility PPA announcements were led by Public Service Company of Colorado (350 MW), Entergy Louisiana (250 MW) and Consumers Energy (225 MW).

Solar was the dominant technology for utility PPA announcements, accounting for over 70% of the new capacity announced. Despite record demand, power purchase agreement prices for future projects increased nearly 6% in the quarter, with supply chain constraints, commodity price increases, expiring tax credits and trade barriers all weighing on project economics. Solar PPA prices increased 5.7%, while wind prices increased 6.1%. According to market data year-over-year, the average overall PPA price increased by 15.7%.

Despite some of these increases, renewable energy is one of the most affordable ways to generate electricity and reduce carbon pollution. Clean energy technology has improved dramatically over the past decade with solar costs down 90% since 2009 and wind costs down 70%.

Read the full report here.

Continue reading

Q CELLS is releasing its more powerful Q.PEAK DUO-G10 solar module series in Europe. The new module offers more power than its predecessor, the Q.PEAK DUO-G9, with larger M6 wafers. For ground-mounted solutions, the 156 half-cell Q.PEAK DUO XL-G10 module delivers up to 495 Wp, which is up to 20% more module power than a standard 156 half-cell module.

For residential installations, the smaller 132 half-cell Q.PEAK DUO ML-G10 version can deliver power output up to 415 Wp. This module has also been awarded the TÜV Rheinland Quality Controlled PV certification, which is one of the most thorough testing programs for solar module quality in the industry.

Both the 132 half-cell and 156-half-cell versions of the Q.PEAK DUO-G10 provide efficiencies of 20.9% and 21.6%, respectively, thanks to Q.ANTUM DUO Z Technology, which arranges the module in a zero-gap cell layout. With higher yield per surface area, the Q.PEAK DUO-G10 series helps to further lower BOS costs for the customer.

“There is a definite trend in the solar industry towards larger cells using M6 – and more recently – M10 wafers, and so Q CELLS has developed the Q.PEAK DUO-G10 series to meet this demand,” says Daniel Jeong, Q CELLS’ CTO. “The larger dimensions mean that each individual module boasts a very high power output, which complements the zero gap cell layout to ensure peak efficiency and performance.” 

The black version of the G10 series – the Q.PEAK DUO BLK-G10 – is expected to be available across Europe in the second half of this year.

Continue reading