Plus Power LLC announced completion of $1.8 billion in new financing for standalone battery storage, including the largest single such project financing to date, to help stabilize the U.S. electrical grid while incorporating more solar and wind energy.

The Texas Tribune explains how battery energy storage, including Plus Power’s Gambit Energy Storage in Angleton, helped Texas avoid rolling blackouts throughout the record-breaking summer.  “This summer, batteries have mostly sold their power to meet high demand around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. when solar production winds down as the sun sets but temperatures are still high. Energy consultant and battery advocate Doug Lewin calls that the “white knuckle part of the evening” for ERCOT, when batteries’ relatively small contribution to the grid can still be “determinative” to meeting what has been record-high demand during Texas’ second-hottest summer ever.”

Houston media reports on Plus Power’s establishment of our headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas. “One of Plus Power’s storage facilities is the 100-megawatt Gambit project, which opened two years ago in Angleton. The nearly eight-acre facility supports power supplies for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which runs the power grid for 90 percent of Texas.”

The National Law Review on the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities approval for Plus Power’s Cranberry Point Energy Storage in Carver, MA.  “Per the Order, the Department also found that the projects are necessary and will provide public benefits, and that the alternative sites evaluated, or no-build alternatives, are inferior to the proposed locations and plans. The Department also evaluated public health and safety issues related to potential fire risks at the proposed project sites, details about battery operating technology, water and wetlands impacts and issues pertaining to land use.”

Officials from Arizona public power utility Salt River Project, Plus Power LLC and the City of Avondale, Ariz., on April 12 gathered for a ceremonial groundbreaking to kick off construction mobilization at a new large-scale battery facility.

SRP and Houston-based Plus Power LLC, joined by officials from Avondale, held a ceremonial ground breaking at the previously announced battery facility Wednesday. The new Sierra Estrella energy storage facility will hold electricity produced during low-use periods and release it when demand is higher, helping to power more than 56,000 average-sized homes for a four-hour period.

Local Phoenix independent newsmedia covering the groundbreaking of our new large-scale battery facility, Sierra Estrella Energy Storage, with Salt River Project and officials from the city of Avondale.

The U.S. energy storage industry has a powerful set of new tools in 2023 to help decarbonize the nation’s power grid. Plus Power COO Julie Blunden joined Garret Hering’s Supercharged virtual webinar to discuss the opportunities and the considerable challenges ahead for battery storage. “It will be a while before we have fully domestic batteries for energy storage—but that may not be the requirement.”

Garrett Hering on a second great piece on the unprecedented volumes of battery storage” in development: “roughly 57 GW of large-scale energy storage resources are planned for connection to the U.S. grid between 2022 and 2025.”  “Over the next three years, I think we’re in a perpetual short,” said Brandon Keefe, CEO of Houston-based developer Plus Power, which is offering its near-term excess battery cell orders to fellow developers short on supplies. “Those who already went out and procured supply are going to have successful projects and those who don’t [have batteries] are going to have issues.”

Garrett Hering on the coming wave of energy storage deployments, starting with Plus Power’s Kapolei Energy Storage facility in Hawaii and our 250-MW Sierra Estrella Energy Storage and 90-MW Superstition Energy Storage facilities for Salt River Project.   The piece notes Plus Power having secured an excess of battery supply – 6.5 GWh—to serve our projects coming online through 2025 and more. “”The next year is going to be a game of musical chairs of those who have supply and those who don’t,” Keefe said. Plus Power is talking with fellow developers in need.”

Salt River Project said Thursday that it will add two new battery storage systems that will go online in 2024 with a combined output of 340 megawatts, giving the Arizona utility company more options during times of heavy power demand.  SRP said it signed contracts with Houston-based Plus Power for the two projects, which will be built in Avondale and Gilbert.

The Conversation’s Savannah Harriman-Pote on the role of firm renewable generation in the future of our grid. “On Oʻahu, Kapolei Energy Storage by Plus Power is still under construction, but it will be the largest storage facility in the state when completed, according to Polly Shaw, director of policy and communications for Plus Power… Battery storage is an important piece of the energy puzzle because it adds stability to variable energy sources, like wind and solar. Traditionally, those resources only provided energy when the wind was blowing or the sun was out.”

Andrew Gomes covers the construction of Plus Power’s Kapolei Energy Storage facility: “The project by San Francisco-­based Plus Power will be the largest stand-alone energy storage system in the state and will allow utility company Hawaiian Electric to accept more intermittent power generation from renewable sources, including rooftop solar, that replace fossil fuel power plants over the long term.”

The KES facility will be the first of its kind in the state, and it will pave the way for the rest of the nation to transition into renewable energy.

Murray Carpenter interviews State Representative Mo Terry on Maine’s electrified future: “The storage facilities that we have right now are on the smaller size, 10-15 megawatts per facility, where the one that’s coming to Gorham is hopefully going to be up to about 150 megawatts of storage,” she says. That proposed facility, Plus Power’s Cross Town Project, would be about 17 times the size of the Tesla system near East Millinocket. That’s about enough to power 150,000 Maine homes for two hours.

Congratulations to two national award winners at Plus Power. Samane Zeyghami, our Head of Analytical Solutions, was just recognized by the Energy Storage Report in their “List of Top 40 Women Leaders in Energy Storage.” And Allyson Sand, our Market Lead – Development for the Northeast, was recently recognized as one of three “Breakout Woman of the Year” awardees by the Energy Storage Association. Congratulations to Samane and Allyson!

Since early 2018, Plus has aggregated one of the most unique standalone storage portfolios in the United States. Plus has over 7,000 MW of projects across 20+ states and is active in nearly all major RTOs & markets.

Find out why Plus Power’s Kapolei Energy Storage project won the Renewables Deal of the Year award in 2021 from Project Finance International. “Plus Power’s success completing the financing provided a strong signal of capital market support for high quality, standalone energy storage projects.”

Largest project financing for standalone energy storage

Watch a 6-minute video in this story from Julian Spector at Canary Media on how the Kapolei Energy Storage project in Oahu serves as a linchpin to integrate higher amounts of customer-sited renewables—and more utility-scale renewables. Project Lead Scott Schalich agrees: KES will be a “postcard from the future for the mainland on decarbonizing the grid.”

Todd Olinsky-Paul of Clean Energy Group posts an opinion of Plus Power’s major energy storage milestone in New England.

Julian Spector describes the unique grid-forming and blackstart services of Plus Power’s planned 185 MW/ 565 MWh KES facility on Oahu, Hawaii, beyond its main role of absorbing abundant, low-cost renewable energy and shifting it to when energy is needed most. “Put simply, KES is a test case for how to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy without relying on gas power in a pinch.”

Julian Spector on Hawaii as a postcard from the future for clean energy and the first part of a Canary Media story on Plus Power’s KES battery storage facility serving the whole Oahu island grid.

The 185-megawatt project will be the largest stand-alone battery in the state and is now considered a key bridge to Oahu’s transition off of the 180-megawatt AES coal plant, which is scheduled for retirement in September 2022 — a milestone toward the state’s march to 100% green-generated power.

Video coverage of the August 11, 2021 KES Ground Blessing as aired on Hawaii’s KGMB and KHNL TV stations.

Peter Kelly-Detwiler on Plus Power’s data-driven strategies to deploy utility-scale stand alone energy storage across the U.S.

Maine policymakers want to encourage such projects as another tool to help meet the state’s ambitious climate goals.

San Francisco-based developer Plus Power won two bids in the latest capacity auction held by the New England ISO, which operates the transmission grid and competitive power markets in six northeastern states. That means that these two battery plants offered a compelling enough price to edge out some fossil fuel plants for delivering power on demand.

As Yoshimura said in July’s virtual town hall, “KES will end the use coal in Hawai’i, make the Hawaiian Electric grid more reliable, and allow the deployment of more renewable energy. It really is a ‘win-win-win’”.

Plus Power is developing the standalone Kapolei Energy Storage (KES) project on Oahu. “With a commercial operation date of June 2022, the 185 MW KES project will help facilitate the retirement of the last coal plant in Hawaii,” Allyson Sand, a developer with Plus Power, said in an email. The island’s 180 MW coal plant, owned by AES, is set to retire in September 2022.

San Francisco-based storage developer Plus Power did the early legwork on those two sites before selling to BRP, GTM learned. Earlier this year, Plus Power also won a massive battery contract to displace a coal plant on Oahu, Hawaii. “Plus [Power] identified an early opportunity for storage to provide valuable services in Texas,” CEO Brandon Keefe said. “Broad Reach was the right partner at the time to bring this project from [notice to proceed] to online.”

“At the state level, we see a lot of positive activity happening, with significant investment from the utilities and from NYISO to incorporate storage,” Sand said.

“Developer Plus Power’s 185-megawatt battery will shift solar energy and deliver grid services to allow Oahu’s last coal plant to retire.”

The Kapolei Energy Storage Project Will Help End the Use of Coal in Hawai’i

“This is the first commercial operation for the boutique large-scale storage development outfit, which also includes Robert Rudd, formerly Tesla’s utility sales director for energy storage, and Alex Fraenkel, who built the storage program at NextEra Energy Resources. Keefe previously developed utility-scale storage in partnership with Enel at Sovereign Energy Storage.”