An evolving regulatory setting, expanded tax credit, and strikes for extra reliability and resilience within the energy house are impacting the expansion of solar-plus-storage installations.
A number of state utility commissions lately have lowered the export fee for web vitality metering (NEM), which means customers using solar energy are seeing much less worth for the photo voltaic vitality they might return to the facility grid. These measures, comparable to one lately handed in California and taking impact in April, have sparked loads of debate within the solar energy neighborhood. Detractors say it makes residential photo voltaic much less enticing, taking away a monetary incentive for set up. Proponents say it incentivizes the usage of vitality storage hooked up to solar energy, and over time will show advantageous for extra solar energy adoption.
Critics of plans to cut back export charges say such strikes profit utilities on the expense of house owners, and are more likely to gradual progress in residential photo voltaic by making rooftop arrays dearer. Others see the measures as a method to jump-start the nascent residential solar-plus-storage market, offering alternatives for photo voltaic installers to pair techniques with batteries, lowering prices over time. Most everybody agrees, although, that tax credit and different options within the Inflation Discount Act (IRA) signed by President Biden final 12 months present essential assist for each the photo voltaic and storage industries.
Supporters of vitality storage level to advantages already being acknowledged as photo voltaic builders and utilities add batteries to massive, utility-scale photo voltaic arrays, to supply extra resilience and assist steadiness the grid. The subsequent step, in keeping with many within the business, is rising residential storage, which is able to present different advantages together with supporting progress in electrical automobile (EV) adoption.
Germany gives an instance. Adjustments to NEM guidelines there a decade in the past set off constant progress in photo voltaic paired with storage, which lately has skilled even quicker progress. EUPD Analysis, a Germany-based worldwide data-based market analysis and consulting group, in a latest report mentioned about 220,000 new residential storage techniques have been linked to rooftop photo voltaic in Germany in 2022.
“Shoppers all over the world are in search of residential photo voltaic options that present vitality independence and safety within the face of rising electrical energy costs and large grid disruptions pushed by excessive climate,” mentioned Raghu Belur, co-founder and Chief Merchandise Officer for Enphase Power, a California-based vitality know-how firm. “In truth, residential photo voltaic deployments are forecast to develop over 35% within the subsequent 4 years whereas residential battery storage is anticipated to develop over three-fold by 2026, in keeping with latest stories by Wooden Mackenzie and SEIA [the Solar Energy Industries Association], and ESA [the Energy Storage Association], respectively.”
Belur instructed POWER, “Photo voltaic-plus-battery storage know-how is well-positioned to adapt to an more and more electrified future by seamlessly integrating with EVs, warmth pumps, and different linked house home equipment, making it simpler than ever for customers to handle their family vitality payments and take management of their very own vitality future.”
“The development of rising vitality prices and a necessity for larger vitality resilience within the face of more and more frequent grid outages and emergency shut-offs has pushed surging curiosity in behind-the-meter PV-plus-storage techniques, particularly in Europe,” mentioned Levent Gun, CEO of Ampt, a photo voltaic and storage firm working to decrease prices and improve optimization of PV techniques. “Among the many quite a few elements driving the expansion of solar-plus-storage within the U.S. and all over the world are bettering economics, coverage assist, and the easy truth {that a} renewables-dominated grid requires ample storage to stay stabilized and resilient.”
Integrating Renewable Power
Different specialists who spoke with POWER agreed with Gun that upgrades to energy supply infrastructure want to incorporate vitality storage, notably in relation to integrating photo voltaic and different renewable vitality to the grid.
“Storage is completely important to the development and modernization of the grid. Renewable initiatives merely can not assist the grid in a significant means with out storage,” mentioned Julie Steury, vice chairman of Packages & Buyer Ops with Stem, a California-based group utilizing synthetic intelligence to assist handle vitality property. “Elevated vitality calls for, unstable vitality sources and prices, and unreliable entry from growing climate incidents occur outdoors of photo voltaic era. Clever storage and renewable asset administration with superior software program options will allow companies and utilities to successfully seize that clear vitality, retailer it correctly, and know when to discharge that vitality for one of the best outcomes.”
Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, a California-based supplier of photo voltaic and storage merchandise, instructed POWER: “The general length of energy interruptions within the U.S. has greater than doubled since 2015, and with pure disasters additionally on the rise, blackouts are inevitable. This leaves utilities challenged with adapting present vitality techniques to those worsening circumstances. In 2023, we are going to see a rising momentum throughout the nation to include house photo voltaic and battery capability as regulators look to supply larger resilience to the electrical grid.”
“As utilities proceed to get extra snug with vitality storage on their techniques, we’re seeing an enlargement of acceptable purposes,” mentioned Mike Toomey, director of storage improvement at Redeux Power, a clear vitality challenge developer. “Storage is now being thought-about an choice to mitigate transmission and distribution upgrades. As that development evolves, we might even see situations the place photo voltaic is co-located with storage transmission property to keep away from the necessity to cost from the grid beneath extra excessive constraint situations.”
Marija Vujacic, PhD, product supervisor for Battery Power Storage Programs with Hitachi Power, instructed POWER that “storage provides a basic worth in balancing the variability of photo voltaic era whereas on the similar time enabling greater consumption of a self-generated renewable energy. It permits bidirectional energetic energy change with the grid, which permits storage to supply a variety of purposes that can not be offered by solar-only techniques comparable to stabilizing and working remoted renewable-driven energy techniques.”
Utility-Scale Tasks
Latest utility-scale solar-plus-storage initiatives embrace the Darien Photo voltaic Power Middle in Wisconsin. The state’s Public Service Fee lately permitted Madison Fuel and Electrical Co.’s (MGE’s) request to purchase photo voltaic vitality and battery storage capability from the $478 million facility, which incorporates 250 MW of photo voltaic and 75 MW of battery storage. Madison Fuel will personal 25 MW of photo voltaic vitality and seven.5 MW of battery storage from the Invenergy-developed challenge.
“The Darien Photo voltaic Power Middle is one other essential step in our ongoing transition to cleaner vitality sources, lowering carbon at the very least 80% by the tip of this decade and reaching net-zero carbon electrical energy by 2050,” mentioned Jeff Keebler, chairman, president, and CEO of MGE. The remainder of Darien’s photo voltaic and storage is anticipated to be owned by WEC Power Group subsidiaries We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service. The Darien website is anticipated to enter business operation by year-end 2024.
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1. It is a rendering of the 690-MW Gemini photo voltaic and storage challenge being constructed close to Las Vegas, Nevada. Courtesy: IHI Terrasun Options |
“The tempo of storage integration into photo voltaic initiatives is accelerating as utilities and unbiased system operators (ISOs) notice the necessity and profit of getting co-location of photo voltaic and storage amenities,” mentioned Ray Saka, vice chairman of Gross sales and Service for IHI Terrasun Options, the system integrator and repair supplier for the 690-MW Gemini photo voltaic and storage challenge (Determine 1) being constructed close to Las Vegas, Nevada. “We’ve additionally observed an uptick within the adoption of DC-coupled photo voltaic plus storage versus its AC-coupled various or standalone initiatives.” (Editor’s notice: Get extra perception from IHI Terrasun on this POWER Interview with firm president Jamal Burki.)
Saka instructed POWER, although, that “with the IRA incentive for standalone storage techniques, we might even see extra improvement of standalone techniques that may now declare the tax credit score, together with potential for extra advantageous siting that’s not tied to the expanse wanted for photo voltaic initiatives.”
On a smaller scale, microgrid builders more and more are together with storage, together with photo voltaic and different applied sciences, in installations designed for off-grid and backup energy websites, particularly as energy reliability turns into extra of a difficulty.
“As an organization largely specializing in off-grid and hybrid purposes, we’re seeing far more of a requirement within the resilience and emergency response house,” mentioned Colin Touhey, CEO of Pvilion, a New York-based photo voltaic gear developer and producer. “The resiliency world is a really large market. There’s a robust want to be utterly unbiased from the grid, or have the flexibility to disconnect and run unbiased microgrids.”
Touhey instructed POWER his firm is seeing “demand for storage in grid-tied purposes in additional than 50% of our new initiatives. 4 or 5 years in the past, that demand was about 10%. The photo voltaic vitality produced may be fed into the grid as wanted to maximise revenues. Within the off-grid purposes that Pvilion builds [which include communications; command centers; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning; and radar systems], that is important, for the reason that demand varies all through the day. The vitality storage system acts as a buffer between the provision of energy [solar] and the demand [load].”
PPAs Assist Tasks
Energy buy agreements (PPAs) proceed to drive solar-plus-storage deployments. Nationwide Grid Renewables lately introduced the beginning of business operation at its Noble Photo voltaic and Storage Mission (Determine 2) in Denton County, Texas. The set up is a 275-MW photo voltaic and 125-MWh vitality storage facility, which Blake Nixon, president of Nationwide Grid Renewables, mentioned is the group’s “first utility-scale vitality storage challenge, in addition to our largest photo voltaic vitality challenge to this point.”
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2. The Noble Photo voltaic and Storage set up in Texas consists of 275 MW of solar energy capability together with 125 MWh of vitality storage. Courtesy: Nationwide Grid Renewables |
The House Depot and NRG Power have every executed particular person 100-MW photo voltaic PPAs with the Noble challenge, and The Hershey Firm has contracted on a 50-MW photo voltaic PPA. The challenge makes use of Fluence Power’s sixth-generation Gridstack product for vitality storage.
Steury famous the significance of PPAs to challenge deployments. “Whole business photo voltaic installations are anticipated to double once more over the subsequent three years with practically 27 GW of off-site initiatives with company off-takers scheduled to come back on-line by 2025. We’ve already seen corporations throughout each business establishing ESG [environmental, social, and governance], and net-zero objectives, and exhibiting clear progress with solar-plus-storage pilots. Now, with [the] IRA unlocking important incentives and eradicating among the historic dangers, we’ll see broader adoption of solar-plus-storage property past the larger manufacturers and early adopters.”
“With the extension of tax credit for photo voltaic, we count on to see extra deployments within the distributed house,” mentioned Toomey. “As market charges dictate, photo voltaic will create a mini ‘duck curve’ for the person system proprietor, including justification so as to add storage to mitigate the demand costs that are actually a shorter, extra predictable interval within the day.”
Toomey instructed POWER, “The most important financial savings by co-locating storage with a photo voltaic farm comes within the type of shared improvement and gear prices. A standalone storage challenge would want to undergo separate allowing, interconnection filings, and in lots of instances a expensive transformer. By incorporating with photo voltaic, the price of storage is lowered to land, which is basically de minimis in comparison with the land necessities of photo voltaic, and the gear prices as much as and together with medium voltage.”
Coverage Helps U.S. Manufacturing, Installations
Development in solar-plus-storage is also being pushed by incentives within the IRA, which assist U.S. manufacturing of photo voltaic and storage gear, together with new initiatives.
“The proliferation of latest solar-plus initiatives within the interconnection queues because of favorable economics—solar-plus-storage is a cheap answer primarily based on the price of supplies—and the IRA act is encouraging new photo voltaic initiatives by means of the subsequent two or three many years,” mentioned Kevin Kohlstedt, director of Enterprise Improvement at Power Shares, a bunch that gives buyers direct entry to U.S. renewable vitality improvement initiatives. “Photo voltaic panel manufacturing and battery manufacturing is coming again to the U.S. Due to the IRA, the manufacturing tax credit plus the large demand from U.S. initiatives is driving U.S. manufacturing.”
Microvast, a Texas-headquartered group with operations within the UK, Germany, and China, together with the U.S., in December mentioned it will provide its BESS ME-4300 container answer (Determine 3) for a 1.2-GWh battery vitality storage challenge co-located with a photo voltaic set up. The precise location was not disclosed. The corporate mentioned its battery cells manufactured at its manufacturing facility in Clarksville, Tennessee, are anticipated to qualify for incentives beneath the IRA. The corporate additionally in late December introduced the opening of a Know-how and Testing Middle in Timnath, Colorado, close to Fort Collins, as a part of its enlargement.
“The shopper response to our lately launched ME-4300 answer has been extraordinarily promising and we’re excited to be chosen as a key provider for one of many largest vitality storage initiatives in the USA,” mentioned Zach Ward, president of Microvast Power. “This challenge will assist place Microvast as a pacesetter within the utility-scale vitality storage market whereas lowering carbon emissions and aiding the native utility in assembly its rising electrical energy wants.”
DSD Renewables (DSD) and Black Bear Power late final 12 months introduced they’d begun set up of onsite rooftop photo voltaic techniques, totaling 554 kW, at two Signature Middle workplace buildings in Pleasanton, California. The techniques will embrace vitality storage.
“It has been nice to work with trusted companions and see the groups come collectively on the primary two rooftop photo voltaic techniques that exemplify a dedication in direction of a cleaner future,” mentioned Jason Chiang, senior director of Industrial Origination at DSD. “With long-term financial savings in thoughts, the photo voltaic techniques paired with battery storage will assist stabilize vitality prices over the subsequent 20 years.” The initiatives will probably be constructed and owned by DSD Renewables, and facilitated by Black Bear Power. They’re the primary in a collection of 4 workplace campuses that may embrace rooftop photo voltaic, carport photo voltaic, and vitality storage. The initiatives when full will complete about 3 MW of photo voltaic and three.8 MWh of battery storage.
Maxine Ghavi, senior vice chairman, Head of Grid Edge Options for Hitachi Power, mentioned energy buildings primarily based on demand costs and time-of-use charges will assist drive the solar-plus-storage market. Ghavi famous, “Photo voltaic-plus-storage has been acknowledged as one of many key options in direction of guaranteeing extra inexpensive, safe, and sustainable vitality.”
—Darrell Proctor is a senior affiliate editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).
