UK listed energy storage investor-developer Gore Street Energy Storage Fund and system integrator LS Energy Solutions are partnering on a 200MW/400MWh battery storage project in California.The pair’s Big Rock battery energy storage system (BESS) will be in Imperial County, Southern California, providing power for grid-balancing ancillary services and capacity for resource adequacy (RA) to the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) grid, one of the US’ two leading markets for the technology along with Texas’ ERCOT.
The CAISO service area, which covers roughly 80% of California, exceeded the 5GW threshold of installed BESS resources for the first time earlier this year. Meanwhile RA, the mechanism through which California utilities and other electric load-serving entities ensure supplies to their customers meet demand, has been a big factor in its energy storage boom.
As noted by Energy-Storage.news in Q1 of this year when Gore Street Energy Storage Fund acquired the project from developer Avantus, typically RA-contracted BESS projects are 4-hour duration, in line with RA market structures.
LS Energy Solution said in a release this morning that the Big Rock system will deliver 4-hour discharge durations to meet RA contract obligations, at 100MW rated output.
Big Rock is Gore Street’s first California acquisition and marks a continuation of the UK company’s internationalisation strategy. One of two UK listed funds dedicated to energy storage, the other being Gresham House Energy Storage Fund, Gore Street has also got projects in the UK, Germany and ERCOT in Texas, with Big Rock the biggest of its US projects to date.
Energy-Storage.news interviewed Gore Street CEO Alex O’Cinneide as the company began its international expansion back in April 2022.
Meanwhile, LS Energy Solutions, an arm of South Korean conglomerate LS Group, will supply 137 units of its containerised battery storage solution, AiON-ESS. Configured to provide energy as well as power, each unit includes integrated DC and AC components, providing AC output. AiON-ESS units to be used at the Big Rock site will each be 1.5MW output with 3.5MWh energy storage capacity.
The technology provider said its own modular 140 kVA string inverter AiON-SIS, will be used in the containers, while it will also provide supporting and operational services such as warranty and monitoring.
It’s LS Energy Solutions’ biggest project to date, with the system integrator only having delivered its first customers’ systems a year ago.
Developer Avantus – formerly known as 8Minute Solar Energy – will stay on board to provide administrative and development services to the asset.
LS Energy Solutions’ director of strategy and market analytics, Ravi Manghani, has Guest Blogged for this site in the past week, offering a view on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), one year after its passing from a system integrator perspective. The Big Rock project will avail of the IRA’s investment tax credit (ITC) incentives designed to reduce CapEx spend.
Manghani’s insights include analysis of how domestic content bonuses for tax credit incentives can be availed of, and how the IRA will undoubtedly accelerate the US energy transition to low carbon resources, but that questions remain over whether that might be sufficient to meet its policy targets on decarbonisation.
