Morning Brief: Swell raises $450M for VPPs, Terra-Gen and Mortenson start on world’s largest standalone solar and storage project

Also in the brief: CPS Energy opened bidding last week on a contract that will double its solar capacity and add 500 MW of backup power to the grid.

December 11, 2020 Eric Wesoff

image: Sofdesk

CPS Energy opened bidding last week on a contract that will double its solar capacity and add 500 MW of backup power to the grid. The utility seeks to purchase 900 MW of solar power, along with 500 MW of firming capacity and 50 MW of storage. The utility will consider a wide range of resources from gas plants to power generated through compressed or liquefied air. CPS Energy expects to announce the winners by September 2021. Source: CPS Energy

South Korea’s LG introduced a family of home battery solutions including a battery capable of housing enough electricity needed to effectively run a whole home — a 16kWh system that can be scaled up to 32kWh. Linh Tran, Sales Director of Residential Business from LG Energy Solution said, “We are also working closely with the world’s leading inverter manufacturers to allow installation with both newly applied and existing solar systems: Single-phase or three-phase, commercial and residential, with very robust back-up capability.”

Distributed energy and grid solutions provider Swell Energy announced plans to finance the construction of four virtual power plants (VPPs) representing over 200 MWh of distributed energy storage paired with 100 MW of solar PV capacity. Swell has been commissioned by utilities in three states to establish over 200 MWh of dispatchable energy capacity through the construction and aggregation of approximately 14,000 solar energy generation and storage systems, intended to provide valuable grid services to the utilities and the local grid. To support the deployment of these and other distributed energy projects, and in partnership with a fund managed by the Infrastructure and Power strategy of Ares Management Corporation and Aligned Climate Capital, Swell has created a VPP Financing Vehicle to support up to $450 million of capital investment for its nationwide VPP portfolio. Source: Swell Energy

Terra-Gen and Mortenson Announce Start of World’s Largest Standalone Solar and Energy Storage Project: Terra-Gen, a renewable energy developer and operator, announced an agreement with Mortenson to proceed on the Edwards & Sanborn solar and energy storage project located in Kern County, California. The project consists of 1,118 MW of solar and 2,165 MWh of energy storage. It is currently the largest single solar and battery energy storage project to reach this milestone. Source: Mortenson

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