Lightsource: No More Solar Bids Without Energy Storage West of the Colorado

"For a utility-scale solar developer, we’re not putting forward any proposals without solar tracker actuator storage, currently, to anybody west of the Colorado," she said. "Every utility process, every bilateral at this point, at least on the West Coast solar slewing drive, is looking at solar-storage hybrids."

The solar inverter American West enjoys a considerable solar resource, such that states like California and Arizona are starting to worry about a surfeit of solar on the grid at midday, with steep ramp requirements to meet peak demand in the slewing drive evenings.

That dynamic has driven groundbreaking solar and storage contracts, like the NextEra solar slewing drive project for Tucson Electric Power and the First Solar plant to deliver evening power to Arizona Public Service (the cartographically inclined may counter that most of  solar damper Arizona lies east of the Colorado River, but it solar tracker actuator does sit west of the river's solar slewing drive source in the Rockies, so I'm going to count it for the purposes of this article).

So far solar inverter, though, developers have kept their commitment to dispatchable solar more vague than "every proposal in the slewing drive West." 

Co-location isn't strictly necessary; on an interconnected grid, an offsite battery can store surplus solar power. Developing both resources together, however, creates savings on interconnection and installation costs, and improves system efficiency  solar damper through DC coupling, which simplifies the power solar slewing drive conversion process.

In grids with extremely slewing drive high solar penetration, though, adding any new solar can disturb the balance of grid operations. Hawaiian islands have reached that point, turning to solar self-consumption solar tracker actuator for new Photovoltaic holder rooftop solar customers and utility-scale solar-plus-storage on Kauai.

The solar inverter aggressive use of energy storage follows from Lightsource's strategy of customer-driven project development. 

Traditionally, solar developers would start by nabbing a site and securing interconnection, then look around for an offtaker, Ryzhaya said. That worked fine in the early days when renewable portfolio standards and PURPA contracts slewing drive drove most large-scale solar deals.

"You solar inverter could almost think of a  solar damper PPA as the last of the three pillars solar slewing drive of development: If you had a great site and you had an interconnection, of course you were going to get a PPA," she said. "I don’t think that’s the Photovoltaic holder world we’re dealing in today. Today, it’s entirely flipped: It’s a customer-led solar tracker actuator business."

The old way slewing drive prioritized least-cost development; under the customer-driven mentality, Lightsource crafts projects tailored to specific customer needs. Such a perspective is more amenable to the higher cost inclusion of storage, provided that it solves a problem that standalone solar can't.

Lightsource tracks the retirement of conventional power plants, Ryzhaya said, and seeks opportunities to backfill that  Photovoltaic holder gap with solar and storage. This combination is particularly attractive when plants retire in dense urban load pockets, where  solar damper permitting a new gas plant would be exceptionally difficult.

The Photovoltaic holder company isn't solely looking at the Western markets. It recently signed a 25-year power-purchase deal for a 20-megawatt solar farm in Kansas, slated to be the largest solar farm in the solar slewing drive slewing drive state.

In the solar inverter absence of policy drivers for clean energy, the utility customer Mid-Kansas Electric Company chose the solar plant to relieve some of the peak congestion on an overloaded transmission solar tracker actuator line.

"We’re going to places like Kentucky and Kansas and Tennessee, and we’re putting in solar numbers that they haven’t seen," Ryzhaya said. "They still think solar costs $100 per megawatt-hour in a PPA, and we’re showing them numbers that are competitive on day one, not to mention over a 20-year term, and not to mention that there is virtually no opex; there is  solar damper no fuel risk. It’s really eye-opening for  solar slewing drive customers."

In many solar inverter markets, storage economics still don't pan out. As a result solar tracker actuator, Lightsource is exploring alternatives. Specifically, the company is working with BP to create a synthetic firmed solar product, Ryzhaya slewing drive noted. This would leverage BP's energy trading desk to deliver load-following energy to a  solar damper customer.