E.ON Climate & Renewables North America, a unit of German utility E.ON, will build a 10MW battery storage project and an associated 2MW solar array to offer ancillary grid services to Tucson Electric Power in Arizona. E.ON will work with Greensmith Power – in which it has invested – to design and integrate the storage system, based on lithium titanate technology. E.ON will build, own and operate the solar park, which will supply power to the batteries. E.ON, a top 10 owner of US wind capacity and a growing investor in large-scale US solar, has been deepening its exposure to the storage market over the last year. In addition to its investment in US-based Greensmith, E.ON has also agreed to co-operate with Samsung SDI to co-operate in the storage business. This spring E.ON launched its ‘Aura’ package for German homeowners, which includes PV panels and a storage system.
Norwegian developer Scatec Solar has taken over the 100MW Nova Scotia project in Nigeria after a deal with Canadian developer CDIL. The project has a 20-year PPA with a local utility.
Chinese PV equipment specialist Sungrow has won a deal to supply 150MW of central inverters to project being developed by Mytrah in India. Sungrow will deliver the inverters to arrays in the states of Telangana and Punjab as part of its SG2500 Turnkey Solution product. Mytrah, a major wind power developer in India, is currently also carving out a significant solar portfolio in the country.
General Electric’s grid solutions business announced a pilot project with Pacific Gas and Electric that will see GE providing the California utility with its Distribution Energy Resource Management software platform. GE’s platform will with give PG&E “look-ahead capabilities” and help the San Francisco-based utility to co-ordinate and optimise the growing portfolio of distributed energy resources (DER) like rooftop PV and battery storage on its system. The platform will utilise communications based on IEEE 2030.5 standards, also known as the Smart Energy Profile 2.0, to enable co-ordination between PG&E and third-party DER aggregators. “PG&E and GE are focused on bringing new levels of awareness, visualisation and optimisation to the management of the electric grid of the future,” says Karim El-Naggar, chief digital officer at GE Energy Connections.
Empower Energies has commissioned a 850kW solar array at the General Motors assembly plant in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The facility builds the iconic Chevrolet Corvette sports car. “Projects like this solar array at our Bowling Green plant help send a message that renewable energy is a sustainable and affordable choice for manufacturing,” said Rob Threlkeld, global manager of renewable energy at GM. The array moves GM closer to its 125MW renewable energy goal in 2020.
