Solar News - Pro Bid Energy

MUFG to Fund Origis $344 Million for Golden Triangle I Construction

Vikas Anand

Origis Energy has closed a $344 million construction financing facility and conversion to term loan with MUFG for its Golden Triangle I energy storage project in Lowndes County, Miss.

Golden Triangle I, with 200 MW solar capacity co-located with 200 MWh of energy storage, is one of three Origis renewable projects under construction in the state. Together, they represent the largest solar plus battery energy storage deployments in Mississippi to date, says Origis.

Origis announced construction of the three projects, Golden Triangle I, Golden Triangle II and Optimist, earlier this year. With a total capacity of 550 MW solar plus 600 MWh of battery energy storage, the projects will deliver energy at competitive rates under PPAs executed between Origis Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

Golden Triangle I is supported during construction and long-term operation with this loan facility. After construction completion, the financing will be converted to a long-term instrument covering the expected 25-year minimum operational life of the project. The loan facility structure also leverages the transferability provision of the Inflation Reduction Act prior to commitments for tax equity financing.

“The MUFG team has been outstanding. They have worked with us to uncover innovative ways to leverage the IRA provisions and ensure the Golden Triangle I project delivers for TVA and its customers as promised,” says Vikas Anand, COO and CFO of Origis Energy.

“Golden Triangle I will power the equivalent of 57,000 homes, deliver grid resiliency and avoid 291,000 metric tons of CO2 each year. These attributes are in addition to the economic benefits the project and portfolio will deliver in the region. We thank MUFG for their support and look forward to delivering the project for TVA.”

Renewa Closes White Wing Solar Sale Lease-Back Transaction With LRE

Gage Mooring

Renewa has successfully closed a sale lease-back transaction with Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE) for the White Wing Ranch Solar project in Maricopa County, Ariz.

This deal supports the continued growth of LRE’s project pipeline, while allowing the company to maintain long-term site control for the project’s construction and operation.

“The LRE transaction is just one of the several sale-leasebacks we’ve closed on in the past year,” says Gage Mooring, Renewa co-Founder and co-CEO. “Despite capital markets tightening, Renewa remains determined to continue partnering with developers and providing necessary capital to help move projects and add value.”

“We have a mission to acquire land and help finance the transition to renewable energy,” adds Stephen Lee, Renewa co-Founder and co-CEO. “We are continuing to actively underwrite deals on land under every piece of the energy transition, from solar projects to transmission lines to battery storage.”

Renewa has more than 30 GW of renewable projects across 26 U.S. states.

TotalEnergies Signs with LyondellBasell to Supply 358 MW From Texas Farms

Vincent Stoquart

TotalEnergies has signed a second contract with LyondellBasell to supply a combined 358 MW of green electricity sourced from its utility-scale Cottonwood Bayou and Brazoria Solar farms in Texas.

Through the newly signed 15-year Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA), LyondellBasell will offtake 163 MW from TotalEnergies’ Brazoria Solar farm, which has a capacity of 325 MW and a commercial start-up planned for end of 2025.

Through the previous renewable 12-year CPPA signed last year, LyondellBasell will offtake 195 MW from TotalEnergies’ Cottonwood Bayou Solar plant, which has a capacity of 455 MW and a commercial start-up planned for the end of next year.

“TotalEnergies is proud to support LyondellBasell on its climate goals,” says TotalEnergies’ Vincent Stoquart. “The signing of these new upside sharing CPPAs in the United States is consistent with our strategy to take merchant exposure and will contribute to the objective of profitable growth for our integrated power business.”

The two CPPAs are indexed on merchant prices through an upside-sharing mechanism, under which the companies share any potential upside arising from increased market price over the contract term. They follow other CPPAs TotalEnergies signed with Amazon and Saint-Gobain in the U.S.

“We are taking decisive steps to reduce our scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions and power purchase agreements are a critical lever towards meeting our targets”, says LyondellBasell’s Chris Cain. “These agreements with TotalEnergies help us accelerate the development of clean energy and shift to use low carbon energy at our sites.”

Mars Energy Group Integrates CalState Solar into Portfolio

Abe Emard

Mars Energy Group has entered a strategic investment into CalState Solar via its subsidiary, Solara Home Energy, making it the seventh company to be integrated into Mars Energy’s portfolio.

The investment strengthens Mars’ presence in the new-home construction solar market and expands its California capabilities, says the company. James and Chris Pearce, brothers and co-founders of CalState, will lead Mars’ new-home division under Solara as its CEO and COO, respectively.

“Our alliance with CalState brings aboard seasoned leadership, cultivated builder relationships, and operational prowess,” says Mars’ Abe Emard. “With James and Chris steering our new-home division, we’re strategically positioned to dominate the new-home construction sector and expand our share in the commercial solar market.”

“Joining forces with Mars enables CalState to harness the extensive resources of a larger corporation, including advancements in technology, finance, procurement, and marketing,” adds James Pearce.

Utility Salt River Project, NextEra Resources bring online 100MW retrofit BESS at Arizona PV plant

Saint Solar went online in 2020 and is notable for serving SRP’s 11 most energy intensive customers with clean energy, including Walmart and the City of Phoenix, through a programme called Sustainable Energy Offering that allows corporates and other large energy consumers to directly invest in energy from solar projects.

The solar plant was delivered by developer NextEra Energy Resources, which also delivered the new battery system. NextEra operates the PV plant and will also be responsible for operating the BESS.

The project builds on a relationship between utility and developer that has already seen SRP contract with NextEra Energy Resources for the Sonoran Energy Center solar-plus-storage project. The developers announced the Sonoran Energy Center in 2019 and is expected to go online soon, featuring 260MW of PV paired with a 1GWh battery storage system

Arizona, as a state, has become one of the US’ leading adopters of renewables. While 42% of its electricity was generated from gas and about 12% from coal in 2022, nearly all of the remainder came from hydroelectric and solar PV, according to figures from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The recent and continued growth of solar has driven the state to also be one of the country’s leaders in battery storage, albeit some way behind standout leaders California and Texas.

BESS containers and power conversion system (PCS) equipment at the site. Image: NextEra Energy Resources.

The state’s utilities are playing a major role in storage adoption. Earlier this month, social media giant Meta, SRP and Ørsted announced a power purchase agreement (PPA) for a 300MW solar PV project with 1,200MWh battery storage was announced.

In October, developer Plus Power secured financing for two Arizona projects for which it has signed 20-year energy storage tolling agreements with SRP, including the 250MW/1,000MWh Sierra Estrella BESS, at which construction began in April this year.

SRP is bringing online 1,100MW of energy storage resources by the end of 2024, and is seeking to add a further 1,500MW of battery storage by 2035, as well as 1,000MW of long-duration pumped hydro energy storage (PHES). It is also looking to add 6,000MW of new large-scale solar PV by that time, and 1,000MW of other renewables, anticipating growth in demand for electricity in its service area of about 25% by the end of 2030.

In other recent Arizona utility BESS activity, Tucson Electric Power (TEP) is currently developing a build-own-operate 200MW/800MWh BESS project, while Arizona Public Service (APS) signed a 20-year tolling agreement of its own with developer Strata Clean Energy for a 255MWh/1,000MWh BESS.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 6th Energy Storage Summit USA, 19-20 March 2024 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.

Fluence customer seeking refund for Diablo BESS EPC contract, citing ‘defects and chronic failures’

Diablo is a 200MW battery energy storage system (BESS) in the city of Pittsburg, near San Francisco, described as an 800MWh system but actually built to 955MWh as per the document from the Superior Court of the state of California, County of Contra Cost, filed on 10 November, 2023.

In the court document, Diablo Energy Storage LLC spells out how a series of technical failures which it attributed to “Fluence’s poor workmanship and other shortcomings” led to overheating, downtime for maintenance and at times the BESS being removed from grid operator CAISO’s ancillary service market.

Though the project and its vehicle Diablo Energy Storage LLC was originated by LS Power, it may now be part of the IPP’s renewables-focused subsidiary REV Renewables which it launched in 2021.

The cross-complaint by Diablo is actually in response to a complaint initially filed by Fluence against Diablo in October 2023, in which it sought US$37 million in damages arising from its work on the project. Diablo’s cross-complaint in response is also seeking an additional minimum of US$25 million of damages.

Fluence declined to comment on the case when asked by Energy-Storage.news while LS Power has not yet responded to our request for comment.

Fluence did address the litigation in a 10-K filing on 29 November, saying: “Fluence denies the allegations in the cross-complaint and intends to vigorously defend against them and to enforce our claims against the defendants.”

“We are currently not able to estimate the impact, if any, that this litigation may have on our reputation or financial results, or on market adoption of our products.”

Specifics of Diablo’s complaint

The EPC agreement between the two companies covered the engineering and design, the BESS, a power conversion system (PCS) including inverters, an ESS control system, project substation, site improvements, procurement, installation and commissioning, recycling of the batteries at their end-of-life, remedy or warranty defects and the supply of spare parts.

The project was completed Fluence on 27 April, 2022, some eight months later than initially agreed, although this came at a time when supply chain issues were rocking the wider energy storage and renewables sector.

Diablo alleges that shortly after it assumed control of the project, it began to experience a series of failures.

The first allegation pertains to the control system responding slowly or inaccurately to CAISO signals, which caused CAISO to remove the project from the ancillary service market for several weeks.

The cross-complaint claimed Fluence’s proprietary Human-Machine Interface Monitor (HMI) also does not function properly, meaning Diablo has to operate the system with a Data Acquisition System that Diablo calls “inefficient and not intended for that purpose”.

Diablo also cited frequent failures of the Auxiliary Control System and the inverters, with an alleged 27 inverter failures between June 13, 2022 and July 14, 2022 alone, and two arc flash events that have occurred since it went online.

The company also accused Fluence of failing to satisfy the part of the EPC agreement which requires it to investigate and resolve the failures outlined, and failing to provide a facility for unmanned operation.

“In sum, Fluence’s performance under the EPC Agreement has been woefully deficient,” Diablo said.

“Fluence delivered Substantial Completion Certificates and turned over control of the Project hundreds of days behind schedule. Fluence delivered a Project that does not function as designed and requires constant oversight and maintenance.”

“Fluence has failed to properly address and resolve warranty items and chronic failures of essential systems. And Fluence still has not achieved Final Completion.”

Diablo also alleges that Fluence failed to maintain a valid license at all times during performance of the EPC agreement, violating California law.

The cross-complaint was filed on behalf of Diablo by law firm King & Spalding.

Fluence is the second-largest BESS integrator by past projects as per recent research from Wood Mackenzie and S&P Global, while S&P pegs it as the largest by past and contracted projects taken together.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 5th Energy Storage Summit USA, 19-20 March 2024 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.

Statkraft acquires pumped hydro project in development near Scotland’s iconic Loch Ness

Red John, which is being developed approximately 14km south-west of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, was first conceived in 2015 and granted consent by the Scottish government in June 2021.

Pumped storage hydro could well be an important technology in achieving net zero, as it can be used to complement intermittent energy generation by releasing power when there is a spike in demand. This is done by using reversible turbines to pump water from a lower reservoir to an upper reservoir, which stores excess power from sources such as wind farms when supply outstrips demand.

These same turbines are then reversed to bring the stored water back through the plant to generate power when the country needs it.

Kevin O’Donovan, UK managing director of Statkraft, expressed his delight in securing the “significant pumped hydro storage scheme,” believing that it will play a “key role” in strengthening the UK’s energy security and net zero transition.

Despite the positives, O’Donovan urged the UK government to develop an appropriate support mechanism to support pumped storage hydro, something that Scottish ministers have also done in recent months.

“There needs to be an appropriate support mechanism in place, so we’re now looking to the UK government to provide the certainty that will allow us to proceed with confidence,” O’Donovan said.

To read the full version of this story, visit Solar Power Portal.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 9th annual Energy Storage Summit EU in London, 20-21 February 2024. This year it is moving to a larger venue, bringing together Europe’s leading investors, policymakers, developers, utilities, energy buyers and service providers all in one place. Visit the official site for more info.

LG Energy Solution’s new BESS system integrator arm claims 10GWh of US orders booked already

The parent company said this morning (20 December) that Vertech has been contracted for 10 separate grid-scale battery energy storage system (BESS) projects with developers adding up to 10GWh. Individual project sizes, customer names or total output in gigawatt or megawatt terms were not disclosed in a release sent to media including Energy-Storage.news.

For LG Energy Solution, which went public through an IPO at the beginning of 2022, the US has been identified as its most important target market to focus on, not least because of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) policies that have promised tailwinds to its main focus areas of electric vehicles (EVs) and BESS.

Back in October last year the company said it wanted to put 45% of its production footprint in North America, with 35% in Asia and 25% in Europe. A few months later in March 2023 LG Energy Solution revealed it would build a US cell factory with 16GWh of annual production capacity dedicated to the stationary energy storage market.

That 16GWh BESS cell production line will sit alongside EV cell manufacturing at the site in Queen Creek, Arizona. BESS cells will be pouch form factor lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells. Back at LG Energy Solution’s press event at RE+, company ESS division head Seungse Chang told Energy-Storage.news that production at the factory would meet required thresholds to avail of IRA incentives for domestic content manufactured in the US.

Chang also claimed the company’s long history of working with LFP cells for EV applications put it in a good position to mass produce high quality LFP cells for BESS too, and with a new design that stacks layers of the cell vertically rather than in the common ‘jellyroll’ configuration.

LG Energy Solution Vertech’s US projects will utilise the LFP cells, together with all other components integrated by Vertech including hardware integration, system controls software and related services.

NEC ES energy management system AEROS lives on

Key to that software piece is the AEROS energy management system (EMS) which was developed by NEC ES and was often spoken about by that company’s leadership as one of its key differentiators. The software suite offers end-users supervisory and controls services and access to cloud-based battery performance analytics.

AEROS is also onboarded with advanced AI and machine learning for revenue optimisation analysis and digital twin capabilities.

At the September launch, Vertech head Jaehong Park further described AEROS’ threefold energy market optimisation capabilities: degradation analysis, system cost estimation including augmentation planning and algorithms to estimate the status of a BESS asset for market bidding of its stored energy.

LG Energy Solution does not yet break out financial figures for its BESS activities, but company representatives have previously told Energy-Storage.news that this may be added in due course.

Largest BESS in the Netherlands online

Pollux is located on the same site as SemperPower’s Castor BESS, slightly smaller at 30MW/62MWh, which the company announced the start of operations on a month ago.

System integrator Alfen, which is based in the Netherlands, provided the BESS for the Pollux project through a turnkey solution including civil works, electrical integration and automation. Rolls-Royce meanwhile provided the BESS for Castor.

Alfen also provided the BESS for SemperPower’s first project, a 9.3MW/9.9MWh system commissioned in Terneuzen in 2021.

The transmission system operator (TSO) in the Netherlands TenneT has said the country needs 9GW of new BESS by 2030 but it has lagged behind Belgium and Germany for deployments. A highly congested grid and ‘double-charging’ of BESS projects by treating them as both consumers and producers of electricity are among the main challenges.

Yves Vercammen, sales manager for Alfen, commented: “We’re especially proud that this project includes products from Alfen’s portfolio of integrated solutions, including our TheBattery Elements Energy Storage System, our Altro walk-in substation and even an Eve Double Pro-line EV charging station for site visitors to use.”

ENGIE Puts Sun Valley Battery Storage into Commission

ENGIE’s 100 MW Sun Valley Battery Storage project in Hill County, Texas has been commissioned.

The project is one of the company’s largest utility scale storage facilities in the U.S. so far. It is co-located with the company’s existing 250 MW Sun Valley Solar project, which commenced operation last year.

“We have more than 2 GW of energy storage already under construction in Texas and other states expected to be commissioned by end of 2024,” says Dave Carroll, chief renewables officer of ENGIE North America. “Together, these projects will contribute to ENGIE’s global aspiration of 10 GW of energy storage installed by 2030.”

The storage system can dispatch electricity into the grid when needed, including the ability to meet peak hour electrical needs of some 10,000 average homes, says the company. The system can be charged both from the co-located solar facility as well as from the wider grid.

The Sun Valley Storage project comprises 308 battery cabinets and involved more than 3,500 workdays to construct, including both local and regional skilled workers.