Dive Brief:
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Ormat Technologies has signed an agreement with Alevo Group to jointly build, own and operate the 10-MW Rabbit Hill Energy Storage Project in Georgetown, Texas, about 10 miles north of Austin.
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Ormat will own and fund the majority of the project and provide engineering, construction services and balance of plant equipment. Alevo will provide its GridBank inorganic lithium ion energy storage system in conjunction with the power conversion systems and provide ongoing management and operations and maintenance services for the life of the project.
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The project will use three Alevo GridBank enclosures to provide fast responding regulation services (FRRS) as an open market participant in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Dive Insight:
The Texas market has more installed wind power than any other state and has a rapidly expanding base of installed solar energy projects, and Georgetown is the first town in the state to move to 100% renewable energy by 2017.
The combination makes a good location for a new energy storage project that can modulate the intermittency of wind and solar power while selling regulation services to the Texas wholesale power market.
The Rabbit Hill project will also provide a transition for Ormat, a developer of geothermal power projects, into energy storage.
“Entering the energy storage market is a key component of our long term growth plan, helping us to further diversify revenues and advancing our goals of transitioning from a geothermal company to a recognized leader in the renewable energy industry,” Ormat CEO Isaac Angel said in a statement.
Angel does not expect the project to generate “material revenues” for Ormat, but says collaborating with Alevo will allow us to make progress towards its expansion in energy storage. The storage project is expected to be in service by the fourth quarter of this year.
Earlier in the month, Alevo signed a deal for an 8-MW energy storage project in Lewes, Delaware. That project will balance the town’s energy supply and sell regulation services into the PJM Interconnection.
