National Grid Renewables started commercial operation at its Noble Solar and Storage Project in Denton County, Texas. Noble is a 275-MW solar and 125-MWh energy storage project located in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market that began construction last year.
“With the start of operation at our Noble project, National Grid Renewables brings online our first utility-scale energy storage project, as well as our largest solar energy project to date,” said Blake Nixon, president of National Grid Renewables. “Clean energy projects like Noble are tangible examples of how National Grid Renewables’ commitment to doing the right thing benefits local and global communities both economically and environmentally.”
Noble is estimated to produce $26 million in new tax revenue throughout the first 20 years of operation. During peak construction, Noble used 600 construction workers and now employs the equivalent of six full-time operations and maintenance workers.
The Home Depot and NRG Energy have each executed individual 100-MW solar power purchase agreements (PPA), and The Hershey Company has contracted for a 50-MW solar PPA for Noble.
“Power plays a significant role in decarbonizing our economy, and we are proud to stand together with other corporate leaders as we bring new renewable developments online,” said Robert Gaudette, Executive Vice President of NRG Business. “We look forward to bringing more energy solutions to our customers and our communities as we all embark down a more sustainable and resilient path.”
Noble uses next-generation Series 6 thin-film solar modules developed and produced by First Solar. Recently, First Solar and National Grid Renewables announced a 2-GW supply of solar modules scheduled for delivery 2024-2025.
“As America’s solar company, we’re proud that our technology will power this project, which, in turn, will power businesses and communities in Texas,” said Adam Smith, First Solar’s VP of global business development. “This is yet another milestone in our journey with National Grid Renewables, and we thank them for their continued trust in our technology.”
Noble also uses Fluence Energy’s sixth-generation Gridstack for energy storage. The project was constructed by Signal Energy.
“We are honored to be a part of National Grid Renewables’ first utility-scale solar + energy storage project to help deliver clean and reliable energy in the ERCOT market,” said John Zahurancik, senior VP and president of Americas at Fluence. “This project is a great example of how solar + storage deployments deliver impactful environmental benefits and reliable energy. We are proud to stand alongside leaders like National Grid Renewables, working shoulder to shoulder with energy users and suppliers to support the clean energy transition.”
News item from National Grid Renewables
Solarman says
“Noble is estimated to produce $26 million in new tax revenue throughout the first 20 years of operation. During peak construction, Noble used 600 construction workers and now employs the equivalent of six full-time operations and maintenance workers.”
There is the cost advantage of solar PV and smart ESS as a comprehensive project. All of these companies doing “analysis”, WoodMac, BNEF, Lazard, EIA, DOE, none seem to be interested in tackling the math of ‘applications’ in current technologies designed for a “purpose”. Utilities are “frothing” over getting rid of coal fired plants and replacing coal fired boilers with natural gas fired boilers or direct up natural gas turbines that react much faster than heat exchange systems for generation in the Peaker plant generation that may actually run supplying power to the grid for 5% to 10% of the year in one to five hour intervals. Build a large solar PV farm, use 1.5 to 1 D.C. to A.C. buss design, use single axis east to west tracking and take as much power from the D.C. buss every day and run a long term energy storage system like [hydrostor] which is (A-CAES) that can be built almost anywhere on earth. The hydrostor (liquid air) system would allow a solar PV farm to take all daytime power provided for the entire solar harvest of that day and store this energy, day after day after day. One could have the equivalent of a 250MWp solar PV farm’s power stored in (A-CAES) with an average yearly production of 365GWh of energy storage and use only 10% per year as a “Peaker plant”. Even with the “reality” of say 70% round robin on all power stored and energy generated, that would still allow 255GWh a year of stored ready to use energy. It also allows a secondary grid energy “shuttle point” to allow one to service a day ahead wholesale electricity grid Nationwide. Three revenue streams, non-commodity power resource and with proper engineering a resource that can be used as ‘Long Term Storage’ as a Peaker plant and as an energy shuttle point in a day ahead wholesale energy system. The Aurora Energy Project in Australia using company [1414 Degrees] silicon heat storage as a medium can be scaled to GWh of energy storage and also could be used as a heat source in some manufacturing processes. Around the World the fear of trying is submissive to the already fixed operations and maintenance practices of “Big Energy”. The STEM sentient of today need to stand and shout, “Analyze This”, before a paradigm will be shifted from a fueled centralized generation with transmission line dispatch to a dedicated ‘power’ provider that has a main function of “storing power” to generate electricity on demand, not using fuel but non-commodity wind farm and solar PV farm power in long term storage for demand use as a local, regional, seasonal generation resource year after year.