Spread across roughly 2,500 acres of sundrenched land in Kings County, Calif., the Slate Solar Project combines a 300-MW photovoltaic system with 140.3 MW of lithium-ion batteries designed to discharge for up to four hours.
Owned by Goldman Sachs Renewable Power LLC, an affiliate of the financial giant, the recently energized hybrid asset supplies five California clients with enough electricity for about 126,000 homes. It is the largest of more than a dozen new battery-backed solar projects added to the U.S. power grid in the first quarter, the initial wave of more than 100 such hybrid facilities planned to come online this year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
Including projects sited with solar, wind and natural gas generation, developers plan to bring online 5,260 MW of battery power capacity at new and existing power plants in 2022, nearly twice as much as in 2021, the data shows. If developer plans prevail against considerable battery supply chain shortages that delayed significant capacity additions in 2021, an additional 9,662 MW of hybrid storage could come online in 2023.
'Staggering' interest
Other major solar-plus-storage projects completed so far this year include NextEra Energy Inc.'s Dodge Flat Solar Energy Center and Fish Springs Ranch Solar Farm, both in Washoe County, Nev., part of a growing portfolio of solar-battery hybrids under contract with NV Energy Inc. in Nevada. NextEra, through competitive generation arm NextEra Energy Resources LLC, completed its Wheatridge Solar & Battery Storage Facility in Oregon in March.
Batteries tied to solar arrays account for approximately 78% of the more than 4 GW of storage capacity completed at generation facilities through the first three months of 2022 and also account for the vast majority of the nearly 15 GW of colocated storage planned this year and in 2023.
The growth of solar-battery hybrids is driven by federal tax credits that apply to energy storage when charging on solar, comparatively low contract prices, construction cost savings for combined assets, and the need for flexible generation, the U.S. Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory said in a report released in April.
"Just as cost declines drove last decade's wind and solar expansion, falling battery prices and growing needs to integrate variable renewable energy generation are driving plans to deploy hybrid power plants," the report said, citing "staggering" developer interest in solar-storage hybrids. U.S. grid operator interconnection queues included 280 GW of solar with 208 GW of storage entering 2022, the report said.
Market Intelligence data, which largely reflects less speculative projects in the near-term development pipeline, shows California as the leading state for completed and planned energy storage facilities combined with power plants, followed by Texas, Nevada and Arizona.
Another 10,365 MW of stand-alone storage is planned to enter service in 2022 and 2023, according to Market Intelligence data. While California also leads the way on completed stand-alone storage, more new stand-alone capacity is planned in Texas, according to the data, which does not include pumped hydroelectric storage.
Significant stand-alone and hybrid storage capacity is also planned in New York, New Mexico, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Utah.
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