The Department of Energy Loan Program Office (LPO) announced a conditional commitment of up to $289.7 million to Sunwealth to help finance Project Polo.
The project aims to deploy up to 1,000 solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) in as many as 27 states.
The solar and storage systems would be located primarily at commercial and industrial facilities, create approximately 3,700 jobs, including over approximately 1,900 solar and storage installation jobs and over 1,700 operations and maintenance jobs.
Combined, the solar and storage sites in Project Polo would have an estimated aggregate capacity of 168 MW of solar and 16.8 MW (33.6 MWh) of battery energy storage. Sunwealth estimates the Polo Project will lead to the avoidance of up to 4.07 million metric tons of carbon over the project’s lifetime.
Sunwealth is a Massachusetts-based commercial solar financier, developer, with a nine-year operating history serving commercial solar markets. The company has partnered with another Massachusetts company, SYSO Technologies, to provide its distributed energy management software platform, which will allow the project to function as a virtual power plant (VPP).
VPPs are an aggregation of small-scale distributed energy resources including solar energy systems, electric vehicles (EVs), EV chargers and demand response devices such as water heaters, thermostats, appliances and more.
“Now is the moment to scale virtual power plants to meet the pressing needs that we have in this country,” said Mark Dyson, managing director of Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) in a presentation during pv magazine USA Week. He stated that one of those pressing needs is the incredible electricity demand growth the nation is experiencing for the first time in 15 years.
Project Polo includes both behind-the-meter distributed energy resources and community solar projects, primarily targeting commercial and industrial properties. Project sites include building rooftops, parking lots and underutilized land across the U.S. The Sunwealth VPP will manage the solar and energy storage, forecasting solar production and the aggregation and dispatch of the DERs.
The SYSO software manages the solar and energy storage as a VPP to support grid stability and resilience, while also generating additional revenue by enabling participation of DERs in VPP programs and wholesale markets. One challenge to aggregating resources across many states each independent system operator (ISO) has its own requirements for solar and storage as far as compliance and market participation. SYSO reports that it has deep regulatory knowledge and customized strategies to help navigate the complexities from state to state.
LPO borrowers are required to develop and implement a comprehensive Community Benefits Plan (CBP). This requirement helps ensure that borrowers create good-paying jobs in the community and improve the well-being of residents and workers.
Sunwealth is committed to paying its employees a living wage and also provides a training program that provides advancement. It also works with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the National Electrical Contractors Association, and local solar nonprofits and trade groups to integrate them into their developer workforce. In addition, and in line with the Justice40 initiative, the company has historically deployed about 40% of its systems to benefit disadvantaged communities. For Project Polo, Sunwealth aims to install between 20% and 50% of solar-plus-storage in disadvantaged communities.
While this conditional commitment indicates DOE’s intent to finance the project, DOE and the company must satisfy certain technical, legal, environmental, and financial conditions and DOE must complete environmental review before the Department decides whether to enter into definitive financing documents and fund the loan guarantee.
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