Southern Power, a U.S. wholesale energy provider and a subsidiary of Southern Company, has been awarded two 20-year power purchase agreements by Southern California Edison (SCE) and is adding battery-based energy storage resources at both Southern Power’s Tranquillity Solar Facility and Garland Solar Facility in California.
“These projects will be two of the first co-located solar and storage projects operating in the California market,” said Bill Grantham, president of Southern Power. “We’re excited to be a part of the effort to enhance California’s grid reliability. The addition of these storage resources to our clean energy portfolio is a great strategic fit for our business and will further position Southern Power to meet our customers’ needs as the energy industry continues to evolve.”
The battery-based energy storage additions will enhance California’s grid reliability by providing SCE and the California ISO (CAISO) with additional flexible resource capacity that will assist in further integrating intermittent renewable energy into the grid.
For the Garland Solar Facility in Kern County, 88 MW and 352 MWh of energy storage will be added, and 72 MW and 288 MWh of energy storage will be added to the Tranquillity Solar Facility in Fresno County.
The energy storage projects will be owned in partnership with AIP Management and Global Atlantic Financial Group, both of which have existing ownership interests in the Garland and Tranquillity solar facilities that went into commercial operation in 2016. Southern Power operates the solar projects and will be responsible for operating the energy storage projects upon completion.
These two energy storage projects align with Southern Power’s growth strategy of developing and acquiring projects covered by long-term contracts with strong credit counterparties.
News item from Southern Power
“These two energy storage projects align with Southern Power’s growth strategy of developing and acquiring projects covered by long-term contracts with strong credit counterparties.”
It’s beginning to look like entities buying up old solar PV projects are now installing energy storage to grab onto the value of signing long term PPAs with utilities. This allows the site to generate and not curtail, shift energy to later in the afternoon or early evening and still be able to stack revenue streams selling ancillary grid services to the community at large.