In the wake of high heat and statewide Flex Alerts, Clean Power Alliance (CPA) advanced two new solar + storage projects that will increase California’s grid reliability. The CPA Board of Directors approved the Rexford 1 Solar & Storage Center and Chalan Solar plus Storage projects last Thursday.
The two projects will add a combined 365 MW of renewable energy capacity and 205 MW of battery storage to CPA’s long-term portfolio, generating enough electricity to power 158,000 Southern California homes, approximately 8.5% of CPA’s overall demand, with 100% carbon-free energy. With these projects, CPA continues to surpass California’s ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction mandates by adding new in-state renewable energy sources and reliable evening peak capacity to the state’s electricity grid.
CPA plans to continue its expansion of clean energy and storage supply with additional projects currently under negotiation through CPA’s 2019 Reliability Request for Offers and 2019 Clean Energy Request for Offers. CPA will be releasing its next annual clean energy solicitation in mid-October.
“Batteries are the cleanest and smartest way to reduce grid stress-induced outages in the future,” said Ted Bardacke, executive director of the Clean Power Alliance. “We are committed to aggressively ramping up battery storage investments so that our customers always have reliable electricity while we continue the statewide transition to a clean energy future.”
The Rexford 1 project is the largest solar + storage project CPA has contracted to date. Based in Tulare County, the project will supply 300 MW of solar power to the grid and 180 MW/540 MWh of battery storage capacity under a 15-year contract with 8minute Solar Energy. The project will create approximately 400 well-paying union construction jobs, with construction beginning in early 2022 and the facility coming online in late 2023.
“Clean Power Alliance’s focus on energy storage is evidence that they share our vision of forging a truly reliable and 100% clean energy grid,” said Dr. Tom Buttgenbach, founder and CEO of 8minute. “We are proud to bring our strong track record of developing and building industry leading solar plus storage power plants to this partnership, and to work together with the state’s largest community choice energy provider to increase energy storage and provide Californians with clean, reliable and low-cost electricity — day and night.”
Located in Kern County, the Chalan solar plus storage project will supply 64.9 MW of solar and 25 MW/100 MWh of battery storage capacity under a 15-year contract with Origis Energy. It will create 100 construction jobs and will come online in December 2023.
“The Origis team is honored to collaborate with CPA and proud that our Chalan Solar + Storage Project will help supply their environmentally conscious customers”, said Edwin C. Moses, Origis’ managing director of project development. “Solar + storage on this scale will help CPA, and California overall, achieve its renewable energy goals.”
News item from Clean Power Alliance
This solar PV plus storage like the Rexford and Chalan projects are local and CCA capable projects that can create (island able) regions of cities, towns or even counties when grid problems strike. Imagine a ‘ring’ of micro-grids around a County. The grid is interrupted from the South, but with energy storage this ‘ring’ can be fed from North, East, or West grid feeders without the loss of power and any grid constrictions can be remediated by bringing the micro-grid energy storage online to make up capacity. I believe this is where getting away from the 4 hour energy storage practice and into the 8 to 12 hour energy storage practice makes more sense.
Then there are really big projects like Moss Landing in Monterey, CA. The site is not even finished and two more expansions have been submitted, accepted and put into the construction queue. The development company Vistra has already released plans to make a 1,500MW/6,000MWh energy storage build out, when it starts its Elkhorn project in the same area. Right now the ESS of choice seems to be TESLA Mega Packs, initially there have been reports of from 246 to 257 Mega Packs will be used, but for the big project of 1,500MW/6,000MWh, it will be 2,000 Mega Packs.
“The two projects will add a combined 365 MW of renewable energy capacity and 205 MW of battery storage to CPA’s long-term portfolio, generating enough electricity to power 158,000 Southern California homes, approximately 8.5% of CPA’s overall demand, with 100% carbon-free energy. With these projects, CPA continues to surpass California’s ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction mandates by adding new in-state renewable energy sources and reliable evening peak capacity to the state’s electricity grid.”
It will be interesting to see how this will all tie together, North to South and East to West to finally come up with an alternative energy plan that can also administer the import or export of energy from other States of the Union.