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Capital Dynamics, Terra-Gen secure financing for large-scale California solar-plus-storage projects
Storage continues to ramp up in California. The two projects below have the capability of providing almost 2,700 MWh of battery discharge to the grid when needed. This is equivalent to 14 - 50MW NG peaker plants running for 4hours.
First:
Terra-Gen said on Monday (2 August) that financing has been completed for the first phase of what looks set to be the world’s largest solar-plus-storage project, Edwards Sanborn Solar Storage facility, in California’s Kern County
...
However, in Monday’s press release the developer said the near-term phases of the project franchise will include 760MWac of solar and 2,445MWh of energy storage, with the first 735MWh of battery storage expected to come online in the third quarter of this year.
By the second quarter of 2022, the first 1,501MWh phase of battery deployment should be online, along with 346MW of solar. Subsequent phases will be financed later this year, with expected commissioning dates for the second half of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.
Second:
Meanwhile, Capital Dynamics said that it has secured tax equity investment on a 60MW / 240MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), which is being retrofitted to a 280MWac solar PV plant and for which the off taker is consumer tech giant Apple.
The project is expected to be completed later this year, Capital Dynamics said in a press release last week.
Note the second project is a retrofit to an existing solar plant. I would expect that almost all existing large solar plants will eventually incorporate storage.
Note: will be interesting to see if the first 735 MWh of storage actually come online in the third quarter of this year. The CA grid can definitely use it.
Capital Dynamics, Terra-Gen secure financing for large-scale California solar-plus-storage projects
Financing has been secured for two projects that will add nearly a gigawatt-hour of battery storage at California solar power facilities this year, by renewable energy company Terra-Gen and private asset management firm Capital Dynamics.
Discussions
Bob,
You must be confusing me with someone else... perhaps the guy who recently made this comment.
On Friday in California, the Helms Pumped Storage Facility reservoir - from where water was to be pumped uphill to save clean energy from CA wind and solar farms - was empty.
He seems to think the Helms Pumped Storage facility only uses energy from wind and solar. Maybe you can explain it to him. By the way, his name is Bob Meinetz too - are you guys related?
Personally, I understand that batteries are charged when electricity is cheap and discharged when electricity is more expensive. That is how they make money and you have to make money because those batteries ain't cheap.
Looking at the average price per hour from 2019 CAISO report you easily see that best average time to charge is between 11am-2pm and discharge between 6-9pm. In other words, buy in the low $20s and sell at $60+. Dang, no wonder they can pay for those batteries.
The important question is - what is the fuel mix between 11am-2pm?
Funnily enough - CAISO has a chart for that as well - 2019.
Between 11am-2pm - in 2019 there is still a substantial amount of non zero-carbon generation. Look like about 60% ZC to 40% NG and imports. That said - charging batteries with that mix and discharging them in early/late evening will substantially reduce CO2.
Plus, where is the puck going? More and more solar is being added, so NG will get squeezed out during midday. This means that battery charging will continue to get cleaner. See how that works?
Joe, have you been watching the news? On Friday, CA Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency through the end of October. How long will it take you to admit the Grand Renewables Experiment is a complete failure?
There's already too much solar at midday, and not enough at other times. Without at least a $trillion worth of batteries, and probably $250 billion in added solar, you'll never have enough reliable capacity to power the grid and charge batteries at the same time, .
Where you think the "puck is going" means nothing to me. Show me a breakdown of how renewables + batteries is going to reliably power the grid - no fossil fuels. Include current costs for all new storage, and new renewables, and transmission, based on sources with links - no homemade charts. Show me what's going to take that blue natural gas line off the graph below, because it sure ain't renewables.
Without that, you got nothing.
Bob,
Yep been watching the news. CA grid is definitely screwed this year and probably next year as well. I'd say there is a 70-80% chance of rolling blackouts this summer.
Going forward planners need to assume that generation from hydro is zero and give much lower values for imports. I think there is a 7-10GW shortfall.
You said:
There's already too much solar at midday, and not enough at other times
It looks like you didn't really look at the graphs I provided in earlier comment. Fig 1.8 shows that there is still plenty of NG to replace at midday. Plus we need a lot more solar to charge all the storage that will be coming online. Here is chart from a couple of days ago on CAISO - 
Note that there is still plenty of NG to replace midday. The green line (renewables) need to move from current 15,000 MW up to 30,000 MW - at least. Throw in battery charging and we still need large amounts of solar. You mentioned 250 GW - how did you come up with that?
Note also in the chart that battery discharge was 1,213 MW when NG peaked. This should grow to 5GW by next summer - assuming projects get completed - but I think CAISO needs to get this to 10GW before we can stop worrying about blackouts.
What's your solution Bob? Add another 2GW of nuclear at $30B and get that online by 2035?
Bob,
Always love seeing one of your new conspiracy theories... Who comes up with this stuff?
Joe, look at solar's production curve...then imagine the sun's arc in the sky. That green line should be a nice, upward, sinusoidal curve that peaks at very close to mid-day - but instead, it starts to flatten about 8:00 AM and peaks ~3:00 PM. What happened? Did a cloud front move in, and prevent solar power from realizing its true potential?
What's happening is this: system operators are deliberately curtailing solar to boost electricity prices for gas (one week ago today, wholesale locational marginal prices, or LMPs, topped $600/MWh; curtailment set a record).
Wacky stuff! But of course, as I specifically say AND as the legend of the chart says the green line is actually renewables not just solar. Here is a chart that shows solar for that same day.
Buy hey - let's not let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.
Next up - your comment about curtailment setting a record - one week ago. - July 31st. Well, here is Curtailment for that week. Where's the record Bob? 
By the way Bob - you do realize that curtailment is actually down this year vs last - right? Perhaps battery storage is already making a difference?
Finally Bob, I really did like the two 10 year old sources for your "nuclear solution". Pretty old - but plenty of good ideas in there. Of course, the primary assumption in these reports is that nuclear will have experienced a learning curve by 2020.
Loan guarantees for six to eight new starts nationally will have to be available. DOE now has about $18 Billion for such guarantees, which will only be enough for two to three large facilities. New funding for guarantees will have to be provided, and Secretary of Energy Chu has said that this is an administration priority. These first new builds have to be completed on time and at cost for a large scale nuclear build up to occur. If all goes well, this buildup could start in 2020.
Obviously this hasn't happened. Your sources are actually a good argument for why nuclear is currently NOT a good solution.
Also as I said - these articles are 10 years old. One of the primary authors - Jane Long , wrote a much more recent paper (2021)on decarbonizing CA grid. This paper describes need for some "firm power" like nuclear, geothermal,NG/CCs, hydrogen etc.. but the authors also understand where the bulk of decarbonization will be coming from.
We find that most of the energy supplying California in 2045 comes from inexpensive renewable resources (Figure 4), mainly solar in California. But when the sun doesn’t shine for many days at a time, the clean firm resources are worth their relatively expensive price.
Coauthor is one your favorites - Jesse Jenkins.
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