Energy storage system integrator Powin Energy and photovoltaic inverter manufacturer Ingeteam have provided battery storage equipment for two 20MW projects in California.
Powin Energy has been selected as a fully integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) supplier for the Rabbitrush solar project, a solar plus energy storage facility in Kern County, California developed by Leeward Renewable Energy.
Energy-Storage.news reported in November that McCarthy Building Companies, Leeward's engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor, had begun construction on the project site.
It will pair a 100MWac solar photovoltaic with a 20MW / 50MWh BESS. It is worth noting that it is the first project to begin construction in Leeward's 10GW portfolio of photovoltaic projects under development, which was purchased from the vertically integrated solar company First Solar. First Solar will use thin-film photovoltaic modules made in the United States.
Powin will provide a complete BESS solution, including batteries, enclosures, wiring, transformers, inverters, and all software and control systems. The company will install its Stack 230P BESS 1000Vdc solution.
Powin said that Stack 230P is suitable for grid service applications such as the required 1.5-hour storage duration and frequency regulation. Stack 230P was launched in early April this year, and Powin just launched Centipede, a modular BESS solution that allows users to combine multiple units of its latest product Stack750E.
The Oregon-based system integrator will commission and provide operations and maintenance (O&M) services for BESS. Powin will be installed next month.
Although the expected commissioning date of the project was previously set for August 2022, it is now set for December next year. Leeward has signed contracts with multiple offtakers, including two Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) energy suppliers.
At the same time, power control electronics expert Ingeteam revealed this month that it provided battery inverter technology for the Johanna energy storage system in Orange County, California, which is a 20MW/80MWh stand-alone BESS.
The Johanna project was completed in late September and was built by Mitsubishi Electric for its owner and operator, renewable energy developer Hecate Energy and InfraRed Capital Partners' energy storage joint venture (JV).
The system’s four-hour lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery storage is also provided by Powin Energy, supplemented by 20 Ingeteam battery inverters with 1,500Vdc technology to support applications including frequency adjustment.
As previously reported by Energy-Storage.news, the grid-connected project is part of a multi-year study that aims to study how to best integrate renewable energy into the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) grid, and its How to offset the continued and expected growth in Orange County's energy demand.
The research will be able to verify the hypothesis of distributed energy (DER) capacity and grid requirements in the region, and help develop expertise to deploy DER more widely.