Terra-Gen and Mortenson have substantially completed the Edwards & Sanborn Solar + Energy Storage project, the largest solar + storage project in the United States. Mortenson was the full engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor on both the solar and energy storage scopes.
This project stretches over 4,600 acres and includes more than 1.9 million First Solar modules. In total, the project generates 875 MWDC of solar energy and has 3,287 MWh of energy storage with a total interconnection capacity of 1,300 MW.
Credit: Mortenson
The project supplies power to the city of San Jose, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and the Clean Power Alliance and Starbucks, among others. A portion of the project is situated on the Edwards Air Force Base and was the largest public-private collaboration in U.S. Department of Defense history. The project uses LG Chem, Samsung, and BYD batteries.
“Now fully operational, this facility is a transformational project in the industry and is providing resiliency to the grid,” said Brian Gorda, VP of engineering at Terra-Gen. “The Mortenson team was tasked with an extremely difficult goal to build this project, and they proved to be the right partner for the job. We are excited to bring Edwards & Sanborn online and benefitting the people of California.”
In total, more than 1,000 craftworkers contributed to the project with more than 1 million hours of injury-free labor and a safety award by the California Association of General Contractors.
“Mortenson is honored to help Terra-Gen deliver the Edwards & Sanborn project and provide the region with clean, resilient power,” said Mark Donahue, senior VP at Mortenson. “I’m proud of the world-class facility our team designed, built and commissioned for Terra-Gen.”
News item from Mortenson
What’s the battery tech that they utilised?
My opinion on where this is going from the perspective of PG&E and our politicians.
Working with the CPUC, PG&E got NEM3.0 approved in April 2023, had rate increases approved effective this month, and another proposed later in the year. Part of the objective is to use these funds in part to continue to build multiple utility level solar farms with on-site battery backup facilities, and to design, expand and install a robust power transmission line infrastructure to local substations.
This strategy allows the utility to meet the 30% state green goals by 2030, keeping the buyback rates low (and potentially lower over time) for excess power produced by the existing homeowner install base, with the utility owned solar farms and selling green power direct to end users as part of their monthly bill. This business model approach delivers an economic model that allows the utility to diminish/destroy disincent the need for rooftop solar installations by homeowners and decimating the small solar businesses that created tens of thousands of jobs.
Additionally, starting this month, AB2143 imposed a requirement for all solar systems over 15kW DC to use prevailing wage labor, which will add costs and administrative burden to comply with State mandated regulations. Another punch in the gut for the industry.
So where is our governor and State Legislature on this? I thought they were green job creators?
Does the Edwards & Sanborn project plan on using molten metal batteries from Ambri? If not, why?
Great job everyone. Looking forward to the benefits that come from others learning from this important investment. I know that the lessons learned from it will benefit everyone moving forward. High hopes for a great long term outcome.
Chinese batteries