Trina Solar has launched its intelligent tracking solution, composed of the newly upgraded Vanguard 1P and 700w+ modules.

The Vanguard 1P, unveiled on Dec.15, features a pipe design that halves torque tube connection time, says the company, adding that the product’s multi-drive system shortens drive installation time. As well, its split spherical bearings and purlin installation system can reduce installation time.

The product is also equipped with the company’s SuperTrack smart algorithm and the Trina Smart Cloud monitoring platform. Compared with traditional algorithms SuperTrack can deliver energy gains of up to 8%, says Trina. 

The company added that its latest design allows for use of irregular plots of land, as well as cutting the number of trackers per MW.

“The new-generation Vanguard 1P combines the core strengths of adaptability to terrain, construction, climate and peripherals,” says Trina’s Quan Peng. “It is perfectly suited for 700W+ modules. Compared with 630W modules, using the combination of newly upgraded Vanguard 1P and 700W+ modules can lower BOS costs by RMB 0.038/W and improve IRR by up to 0.4% under typical working conditions in flat terrains.”

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The announcement said the project will have ‘150MW of dispatchable power’, which may indicate either the terms of the PPA or the power rating of the BESS.

The Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy of South Africa, Gwede Mantashe, signed the implementation agreement while Segomoco Scheppers, senior general manager at transmission system operator (TSO) Eskom, signed the PPA.

Project DAO was declared as one of the preferred bidders in the Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Program (RMIPPPP) in 2021. Another project from that, a solar plus 1,440MWh BESS unit from Norway-headquartered IPP Scatec, started operations recently. Two from EDF Renewables, wind-plus-storage and solar-plus-storage projects, are set to come online in 2025.

TotalEnergies starts building solar-plus-storage project

French energy giant TotalEnergies has started construction on a solar-plus-storage project in South Africa, with a power generation capacity of 216MW and a battery output of 75MW/500MWh.

The project, in the country’s Northern Cape province, is owned by three companies: TotalEnergies and Hydra Storage Holding, both of which hold a 35% stake in the project, and Reatile Renewables, which owns the remaining 30%. The developers have signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with South African national utility Eskom to acquire power generated at the project, and TotalEnergies and its partners expect to commission the facility in 2025.

While none of the companies involved announced technological specifications for the project, its leaders expressed optimism about the benefits of the combination of solar and storage functions at the project.

“Together with our partners, we are pleased to launch this major solar power generation and storage project in South Africa,” said TotalEnergies senior vice president of renewables Vincent Stoquart. “Thanks to its innovative hybrid design, it will enable us to supply continuous green electricity over a longer period and beyond the hours of sunshine.”

See the original version of the TotalEnergies article on PV Tech.

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The BESS will provide reliability and ancillary services to grid operator ERCOT to help it integrate growing renewable load in the state.

The ERCOT, Texas market is among the busiest in the US for energy storage deployments and could overtake California for installed capacity next year, when it is set to hit 9.5GW online in September.

Engie North America has over 2GW of energy storage under construction across the US set to be commissioned by the end of 2024. The firm has acquired big energy storage pipelines in the US recently through the acquisitions of Broad Reach Power in March 2023 and Belltown Power in October 2022.

Gore Street and Nidec announce EPC partnership and investment deal

Also in ERCOT, the UK-listed Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc has enlisted system integrator Nidec as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner for a 75MW BESS project, called Dogfish.

The deal includes EPC and operation and maintenance (O&M) contracts and is “fully wrapped”, Gore Street said, including warranties for availability and energy capacity. The project is set to come online in December 2024.

Alongside the project deal, Nidec has invested £15.8 million (US$20 million) directly into the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund plc through the issuance of 14,000,000 new shares.

The partnership means Nidec is guaranteed to proceed to the second stage of competitive project bidding for EPC contracts put out by Gore Street, if it can match terms offered by other contenders.

“We are pleased to see a large strategic corporation within the energy storage value chain like Nidec taking a material position in the Company,” said Pat Cox, chair of the Fund’s board.

Nidec has previously provided EPC services for Gore Street’s UK BESS projects Ferrymuir and Stony.

Gore Street recently detailed in its first half results how its non-UK assets are significantly outperforming its UK ones.

1-hour systems in a predominantly 2-hour market

Both Dogfish and Sun Valley are notable for being 1-hour systems in a market where 2-hour is increasingly the norm. This is partially because as ancillary service markets saturate more energy-intensive activities will become a bigger part of the revenue stack.

But the main reason is recent state-of-charge (SOC) for some ancillary services, in particular the new ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS), which require a full hour’s charge at the start of each hour of ancillary service contract award.

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.

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Brandt gave an interview following a FlexGen announcement a couple of months ago that the system integrator had carried out a number of upgrades to customer battery energy storage system (BESS) assets in the ERCOT, Texas, market.

In addition to providing commissioning, engineering and procurement services for utility-scale BESS, FlexGen also onboards projects with its energy management system (EMS) and digital controls platform, Hybrid OS.

Over in ERCOT, FlexGen carried out upgrades to Hybrid OS in order for its customers’ sites to meet changing power market regulations as well as new utility standards. The company claimed that through field experience and application of R&D work at its new laboratory and compliance centre facilities, it has managed to reduce the time required for such upgrades by about 75%.

That matters, Brandt told Energy-Storage.news, because whether asset owners and investors are aware of it or not, their BESS project too will be in line for the upgrade treatment, sooner or later.

“The reality is: energy storage projects are going to be upgraded many times over their lives, no matter which ISO you’re in, because regulators are going to change the way that batteries have to operate in the grid, power markets are going to change, revenue opportunities are going to adapt, and some projects are going to enter into different financial relationships, whether it’s corporate PPAs, or some other hedges or tolls,” Yann Brandt said.

In this particular case, it was that grid and wholesale electricity market operator ERCOT implemented some new ancillary services products, Fast-Frequency Response (FFA) Advancement and ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS).

In order to keep up with revenue opportunities, BESS assets need to remain in compliance with the codes and parameters governing those opportunities. That necessitates upgrades, and in some of the more fast-acting markets, those will be more frequent.

“It’s just a fundamental necessity that you need to update your systems,” the FlexGen CCO said.

Webinar shows case study of BESS market adaptation

As alluded to above however, there will be lots of different reasons for upgrading. Last week, Energy-Storage.news hosted a webinar with Fluence – one of FlexGen’s rival system integrators – on the need for BESS asset operators to respond to changing energy market rules.

However, the webinar didn’t come at the issue from a system integrator perspective. Instead, it examined how Fluence’s Mosaic automated bidding platform was used to adapt the market participation of a 720MWh BESS in California’s CAISO market to changes in market rules.

In the webinar, which you can watch on-demand on the site here (registration required), Fluence product manager Drew Skau explained how the BESS’ owner, utility PG&E, was able to optimise the battery’s performance and revenue potential in the face of those changes.

Creating new value and upside to existing projects with upgrades

One interesting difference between CAISO and ERCOT is that CAISO expects to manage state of charge in batteries connected to its grid, while ERCOT does not, although state of charge monitoring has been proposed in ERCOT recently, to a fairly controversial reception.

FlexGen’s EMS is capable of providing good state of charge data, Yann Brandt said, due to in-built data analytics capabilities. That’s an advantage not just in markets like CAISO where that’s a necessity of market participation, but being able to use state of charge analysis and other data coming out of the system has a multitude of other purposes.

“Having an analytic system embedded into an EMS allows you to be able to make real-time decisions based on what you’re seeing from the asset, versus what should have happened with the asset against the theoretical, digital mirror image of that site,” Brandt said.

The energy storage market is still at its early stages, but is already “roaring”, because the fundamental need for energy storage is converging with the market reality that money can be made from it, the FlexGen CCO said.

In all of that excitement, asset owners perhaps don’t think too much about what happens a little way into the lifetime of a project, and perhaps aren’t aware that there may come a time when they want to, say, swap out an EMS or change which optimiser takes their asset into the markets.

“Hopefully by telling this story, people will at least think about the reality of: ‘What will I do when I need to do upgrades due to compliance?’ That’s definitely something we want more people to think about when they’re building sites.”

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.

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Gurin will build and operate the plant, using lithium iron phosphate (LFP) lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. The BESS equipment will be supplied by Japan’s Toshiba Mitsubishi – Electric Industrial Systems Corporation (TMEIC), while engineering consulting services by another Japanese company, Nippon Koei Energy Solutions.

Marking Gurin Energy’s entry into Japan, the announcement made on Friday (15 December) comes amid promising signs of life for the Asian country’s grid-scale BESS market, which has lagged in pace of development behind more mature markets like the UK, US or neighbours China and South Korea.

The developer is setting up an office in Tokyo. It hasn’t yet selected a site for its 2GWh BESS, but said it is “considering a number of locations” in either Fukushima prefecture or Tochigi prefecture, both a few hours drive directly north of the capital city.

Energy-Storage.news has sent the developer a few questions around the drivers behind the project and its Japan market entry, and hopes to update this story in due course upon receiving replies.

Japan is targeting for renewables to make up 36% to 38% of its electricity generation mix by 2030, reduce emissions 46% by that time and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. As Gurin Energy pointed out in a release, this has been modelled to require about 10GW of energy storage by the end of this decade.

At the moment, revenue streams available to battery storage are relatively limited but are opening up through technology advances as well as policy and regulatory progress. For instance, large-scale grid-connected BESS has recently become eligible to participate in buying and selling wholesale electricity in the spot market on the Japan Electric Power Exchange (JEPX).

Next year, ancillary services market opportunities are expected to open up, as is a new capacity market structure open to low carbon resources.

These big picture drivers have led to developments including the recent launch of Japan’s first-ever fund dedicated to investing in front-of-the-meter BESS, set to be co-managed by Gore Street Capital, which founded one of the UK’s first funds of that type.

Just a few days ago, US vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology specialist Nuvve announced that it had been selected to manage 30MWh of stationary battery storage assets in Japan. One thing Nuvve and Gore Street have in common are that they will both be partnered with major Japanese corporate players.

This has traditionally been seen as key to successful market entry in Japanese industry, and energy storage is no exception. Gore Street’s Japanese fund co-manager Itochu Corporation has also formed a partnership to develop projects in the country with Akaysha Energy, the Australian energy storage developer backed by Blackrock.

Trina Storage makes first Japan deal

Chinese solar PV and battery manufacturers have also been ramping up their interest in Japan recently, with battery maker CATL this summer ordering a BESS solution from Hitachi Energy for a large-scale project, and PV manufacturer Jinko Solar receiving orders for a handful of megawatt-scale projects a few weeks ago.

Adding to that list, which also includes Sungrow and other well-known solar companies, is Trina Solar’s energy storage division Trina Storage. Trina Solar is one of the elite Solar Module Super League (SMSL) PV manufacturers as ranked by our colleagues at PV Tech.

Trina Storage launched a couple of years ago and has to date delivered projects in its Chinese homeland and in the UK’s booming BESS market, launching its own-brand liquid cooled LFP BESS solution, Elementa 2, which will use the manufacturer’s own cells.

Trina Storage said last week (13 December) that it was able to publicly announce its first large-scale BESS deal in Japan, which was signed in late November.

The company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to supply 30MWh of battery storage to forestry company Narashinrinsigen Hozenkousya (Nara Forest Resources Conservation Corporation) in the historic region of Nara.

Equipment will be supplied beginning next year. A Trina Storage representative told Energy-Storage.news that the 30MWh deal comprises a number of separate systems, but could not go into specifics. The spokeperson said the systems will perform a combination of both behind-the-meter (BTM) applications for its client, as well as front-of-the-meter (FTM) applications for the grid.   

Trina has been present in the Japanese market as a solar PV solutions provider for more than 13 years, targeting residential, commercial and utility-scale markets.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 2nd Energy Storage Summit Asia, 9-10 July 2024 in Singapore. The event will help give clarity on this nascent, yet quickly growing market, bringing together a community of credible independent generators, policymakers, banks, funds, off-takers and technology providers. For more information, go to the website.

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They comprise two grid-scale lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery energy storage system (BESS) assets and one advanced compressed air energy storage (A-CAES) resource, scheme administrator AEMO Services said this morning.

It’s the third tender to be held by AEMO Services for the state this year, and specifically sought long-duration energy storage, along with new renewable energy capacity. Together with the three storage assets, 750MW of renewables, one wind farm (400MW) and one solar PV plant (350MW) were chosen.

The state roadmap aims to support the deployment of 12GW of new renewables, and 2GW of LDES by 2030. AEMO Services said the three tenders held already have resulted in AU$8.5 billion (US$5.7 billion) of new clean energy investment commitments.

While outside the scope of tenders, the Waratah Super Battery, currently under construction in the state, was also committed to through the roadmap. The 850MW/1,650MWh Super Battery has been instead handed a system integrity protection scheme (SIPS) contract – meaning its primary role is to act as a giant ‘shock absorber’ for the electricity network, helping to manage flows in the event of disruptions caused by things like lightning strikes.

‘Flexible financial security’ for generation, long-duration storage

Tenders will continue to be held biannually for the next decade, Paul Verschuer, executive general manager at AEMO Services said, adding that the tenders provide awarded projects, “with [the] flexible financial security they need to accelerate their completion”.

This is down to the state offering Long Term Energy Service Agreements (LTESAs), which AEMO Services has claimed are a “unique new financial instrument” reducing the risk inherent in investing in assets exposed to electricity pricing dynamics.

“From the strength of the response to the first year of our tender process, it’s clear that the insurance provided by the LTESA contract is working to address a key market risk that might otherwise delay or discourage investors from participating in the transition,” Verschuer said.

New South Wales’ electricity grid is connected to the National Electricity Market (NEM), as are Australia’s other major southern and eastern states. While the NEM was recently identified as among the most price-volatile in the world, meaning there’s a strong business case for battery storage to provide price arbitrage, it is also characterised by uncertainty of those revenues, which can make it hard to get upfront  financing.

The winning projects are as follows:

ProjectTechnology ProponentOutput/capacityLocationSilver City Energy StorageAdvanced compressed air energy storage Hydrostor200MW/1,600MWhBroken HillGoulburn River BESSLithium-ion BESS (part of hybrid power plant)Lightsource Development Services Australia49MW/392MWhMerriwaRichmond Valley BESSLithium-ion BESSArk Energy Projects 275MW/2,200MWhMyrtle CreekUungula Wind Farm Wind Squadron Energy 400MWTwelve MilleCulcairn Solar Farm Solar PVNeoen350MWCulcairn

A-CAES technology provider Hydrostor, which is self-developing the Silver City project in Broken Hill, NSW, recently also got a contract with network operator Transgrid for the 1,600MWh long-duration storage facility to provide 250MWh of reserve capacity that could be used as backup power should the local area suffer grid outages. The company has said previously that the project is expected to cost around AU$650 million and it will leverage some existing mining infrastructure already at the Broken Hill site to store compressed air underground.

Hydrostor CEO Curtis VanWalleghem said the LTESA award was a “vote of confidence” in both his company’s technology and the LDES asset class in general as a “key technology pathway for decarbonisation and grid reliability across Australia”.

“This provides a model for getting much-needed firming capacity into Australian electricity markets, and we applaud the innovative leadership shown by the NSW Government and AEMO Services to support the development of clean and flexible power resources,” the CEO said.

Hydrostor’s is the first non-lithium technology to win one of these tenders, with AEMO Services’ inaugural long-duration and generation tender in 2022 awarding an LTESA to a 50MW/400MWh long-duration Li-ion project by German utility RWE.

AGL takes FID on 1GWh winner of previous round

Meanwhile, three Li-ion projects totalling 980MW/2,790MWh along with 95MW of virtual power plant (VPP) aggregated resources won AEMO Services’ most recent NSW tender, announced in November.

The proponent of one of those three projects, AGL – Australia’s biggest generator-retailer of electricity – said this morning that it has reached a Final Investment Decision (FID) on the 500MW, 2-hour duration (1,000MWh) BESS project.

AGL said this morning that the decision has been made to go ahead with the BESS at its Hunter Energy Hub complex. The hub is being planned as a mixed technology generation and storage facility which could combine hydrogen production with renewable energy generation, and battery storage.

It will be at the site of Liddell, a coal-fired power plant which shut down this year and which is owned by AGL. In addition to the LTESA with the NSW government, the Lidell BESS is being supported by a AU$35 million grant from the national Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

Lidell was one of eight so-called ‘grid-forming’ energy storage projects adding up to 4.2GWh that ARENA chose to support with AU$176 million, as announced in December 2022. The grant is an incentive to Liddel and other projects to be equipped with advanced inverters that mean the battery assets can provide inertia, which helps keep the grid stable and was traditionally provided by thermal power plants.

AGL said the BESS would be funded off its balance sheet, using the company’s operating cash flows and existing debt facilities. Construction is expected to begin early next year.

Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 1st Energy Storage Summit Australia, on 21-22 May 2024 in Sydney, NSW. 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.

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Frank van Mierlo

CubicPV and OCI Holdings subsidiary OCIM have announced a long-term supply agreement for OCIM to supply Cubic with low-carbon, U.S. compliant silicon. 

The eight-year contract, valued at approximately $1 billion, establishes an annual supply volume  commitment by OCIM to outfit Cubic with the polysilicon required to commence operations at its planned U.S. factory. The OCIM partnership solidly positions Cubic to meet the demand for U.S.-produced wafers, says the company. Under the terms of the agreement, OCIM will begin to provide silicon in 2025 from its Malaysia facility.

During the last six months, and in conjunction with equipment validation and testing, Cubic has produced significant wafer volumes using OCIM silicon.

“This agreement with one of the world’s foremost leaders in polysilicon production is testament to our manufacturing capabilities and the progress against our U.S. manufacturing plans. OCIM’s high-quality, U.S. compliant silicon is in extremely high demand, and we are fortunate to lock-in our supply with a trusted partner,” says Frank van Mierlo, Cubic CEO.

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Tom Bitting

Advantage Capital has committed to provide a $185 million investment to Sabanci Renewables to complete the financing of its Cutlass Solar II project. 

Located approximately 40 miles southwest of Houston, Cutlass II is a 272 MW utility-scale project under construction in ERCOT. It is expected to commence operations in April and includes over 500,000 solar panels situated on over 1,000 acres of land, says Advantage.

Advantage Capital’s tax equity investment, which leverages federal investment tax credits, will provide the external capital necessary for Sabanci to complete project construction.

“This investment with Sabanci Renewables perfectly aligns with Advantage Capital’s commitment to funding clean energy projects nationwide and will especially have a positive impact on the community in greater Fort Bend County, Texas,” says Tom Bitting, Advantage Capital principal. “We are thrilled to be working with Sabanci, a trusted name in the global energy industry, in bringing this project online for the benefit of its stakeholders.”

Allen & Overy and Husch Blackwell served as counsel for Advantage Capital on the transaction, and Troutman Pepper and Duggins Wren Mann & Romero served as counsel for Sabanci Renewables. Carbon Reduction Capital also served as Sabanci’s financial advisor.

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The PV roof project located on Steyr Automotive’s 85,000 square-meter roof in Austria has gone into operation.

The approximately 7.5 MW system was installed using the Schletter FixGrid and ClampFit systems. Schletter Group worked with the energy supplier Burgenland Energie on this project, which the company says is Austria’s largest PV roof project.  

On the pitched roof surfaces, the modules were mounted directly onto the trapezoidal metal sheeting using the SingleFix and ClampFit clamps. Schletter seam clamps were also used in some areas where the roof sheets were joined with standing seams.  

“A rooftop system of this size is not only an important milestone for the operator, but also for Austria as a PV location,” says Fabian Madl, Schletter Group’s key account manager. “At the same time, we as a business are further consolidating our good position in a very dynamic Austrian market.” 

Located on the factory roofs of automotive and commercial vehicle manufacturer Steyr Automotive in the town of Steyr, the company will cover around a quarter of its energy requirements with the solar power generated. 

Schletter Group is currently supplying Austria’s largest ground-mounted PV system, also in cooperation with Burgenland Energie. 

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Jesse Tippett

Adapture Renewables has signed three environmental attributes purchase agreements with Meta to procure 330 MW from three solar projects under development in Illinois and Arkansas.

Situated in federally-designated energy communities where a coal facility had been closed, the three projects bring an estimated net economic impact of more than $400 million, says Adapture. It adds that these projects are set to create approximately 500 temporary jobs during the construction phase and maintain around 25 full-time equivalent positions during operations.

“We are proud to partner with progress-minded, global corporate partners like Meta to drive adoption of renewable energy,” says Adapture’s Jesse Tippett. “Working with Meta on these agreements was a delight. The Meta team was efficient and matched our dedication to scaling clean energy, bringing economic opportunities to the energy communities hosting our projects, and achieving three win-win agreements.”

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