Las Vegas: Switch and Capital Dynamics announced three ground-breakings in Nevada July 22. These projects, along with an earlier phase, will continue Switch Founder and CEO Rob Roy’s Gigawatt Nevada solar energy and battery vision to develop what bids to be one of the largest solar and battery storage projects in the industry.
Gigawatt 1 will use thousands of solar panels made by First Solar, an American company and battery storage utilizing Tesla Megapack, manufactured in Storey County, Nevada, at the Tesla Gigafactory.
With these new groundbreakings in Clark and Storey counties, plus the original Townsite development, Gigawatt 1 is planned to “soon” generate a total of 555 MW of solar power and create 800 MW hours of battery storage. Additionally, the Storey County location will be the largest behind-the-meter solar project in the world, producing 127 MW and will include a 240 MW hour battery storage system. Behind-the-meter projects generate power off the public grid, placing no burden on legacy public utility production.
Energy shaping, development, construction, asset management and operation of all projects will be led by Capital Dynamics’ affiliate Arevon, who provides these services for more than 5 GW of wind and solar assets on behalf of Capital Dynamics.
Also in Nevada, EDF Renewables North America announced the signing July 29 of a 22-year Power Purchase Agreement with NV Energy for a 200 megawatt solar photovoltaic project coupled with a 180 MW, four-hour battery storage system.
The Chuckwalla Solar+Storage project expects to come online by the end of 2023. The project is located on the Moapa Band of Paiute Indians Reservation, 35 miles northeast of Las Vegas in Clark County, Nevada. The project will benefit the Moapa Tribe and local community over its operating life through land lease, tax and other payments and approximately 300 temporary construction related jobs.
In a related development, NextEra announced at the end of August nearly 700 MW of battery storage projects expected to be online in California before the end of 2022, plus an additional 2,000 MW of battery storage projects that it is developing, with the potential to be deployed in 2023 and 2024. Aside from that, in pumped storage its Eagle Mountain project could add an additional 1,300 MW if it receives appropriate regulatory action and the company elects to move forward.
The battery storage projects will be co-located at six existing NextEra Energy Resources solar projects and include the previously announced:
• 230 MW at the McCoy Solar Energy Center
• 110 MW at the Arlington Solar Energy Center
• 65 MW at the Yellow Pine Solar Energy Center.
• 63 MW, Blythe110 Solar Energy Center
• 115 MW, BlytheII Solar Energy Center
• 115 MW, BlytheIII Solar Energy Center
In addition to the fully-contracted projects that are expected to come online by the end of 2022, NextEra Energy Resources says it has a current pipeline of nearly 2,000 MW of shovel-ready or near shovel-ready battery energy storage projects in California that could be deployed to help meet the energy storage capacity requirements put forth by the state’s Public Utility Commission. To put that into perspective, the company measures its planned and pipeline of battery storage projects in California alone at nearly twice the total installed capacity of battery storage in the U.S. today (approximately 1,350 MWs). The company explains that its buildout of the 2,000 MW energy storage pipeline is contingent on obtaining long-term power purchase agreements for the projects as well as the necessary regulatory approvals.