French fuels producer Hydrogène de France has committed to co-develop the White Dunes green hydrogen plant in Morocco with developer Falcon Capital Dakhla.
The pair are set to combine 8GW of green hydrogen production with 10GW of wind and 7GW of solar capacity. They are currently investing around €1.8bn in developing the complex's first phase.
Partners Group and Glenfarne Energy Transision's joint venture EnfraGen has bought a 49.5MW wind farm in Costa Rica as part of a 188MW portfolio deal.
EnfraGen has bought a portfolio of six assets from Colombian utility Celsia, which is a subsidiary of Grupo Argos. These assets include the 49.5MW Guanacaste wind farm in Costa Rica; three hydro plants totalling 119MW in Panama; and two solar farms totalling 19.7MW in Panama.
Italian renewables firm EN.IT is developing a 350MW green hydrogen production plant in La Romana in the Dominican Republic.
The company is already developing a solar farm in the La Romana region, and is set to take a final investment decision on the green hydrogen plant in 2026. The scheme would produce around 46,000 tonnes of hydrogen each year and is due to be commissioned in late 2028.
Norwegian utility Statkraft has agreed a €1.8bn deal to buy Spanish firm Elecnor's subsidiary Enerfin, which has 1.5GW of wind and solar projects.
Statkraft said the acquisition gives it "significant opportunities" to repower wind farms, as well as pairing wind and solar with technologies such as battery storage. The company added that the deal strengthens its presence in Brazil and Spain.
BlackRock has achieved a $1bn first close for an equity fund that is set to invest in businesses in Europe and North America that focus on the energy transition.
The infrastructure giant announced started fundraising for its open-ended Evergreen Infrastructure fund in June 2022, and has started to commit capital to companies including a US solar and battery storage firm.
Zenobē’s 50MW battery in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire has gone live, the first of the company’s £750 million portfolio of battery storage projects in Scotland to begin operation.
The battery can store enough wind energy to power 130,000 homes for two hours and will “significantly curb the waste of homegrown renewable energy”, a Zenobē statement said.
The statement added: “So far this year, Great Britain has wasted 2,200 GWh of wind power – enough to have powered all the homes in Glasgow and Edinburgh for one year. Wastage occurs when wind turbines are paid to switch off due to a lack of network and storage capacity. By reducing the need to pay wind generators to switch off their turbines – known as curtailment costs – the Wishaw battery will pass on £41m in savings to consumers over 15 years. This represents a significant step in integrating renewable energy into the UK grid.”
Zenobē’ said the battery in Wishaw is one of the largest ever constructed in Scotland and is the first to connect directly to the transmission network.
James Basden, co-founder of Zenobē, said: "The Wishaw site inauguration represents a significant milestone for Zenobē and Scotland's renewable energy ambitions as we seek to double Scotland’s storage power capacity. Battery storage is essential if the UK is to improve its energy security and bring down costs for consumers. By capturing and storing excess energy with sites like Wishaw, we can power homes, buses and trucks with energy that would otherwise have been wasted.”
Scottish Government Energy and the Environment Minister Gillian Martin said: “The Scottish Government is committed to reaching net zero by 2045. Scotland has an abundance of renewable energy resources, but that has to be matched with the supporting infrastructure necessary to ensure that we can make the most of it. This major investment in storage facilities is already helping bring down energy bills and emissions and will play a crucial role in further decarbonising our energy system.
This announcement follows Zenobē recently securing an investment of around £600 million from global investment firm KKR, in addition to a further £270 million from existing shareholder Infracapital.
Stationary battery manufacturer Hithium and solar project engineering procurement and construction (EPC) provider Solarpro have announced a strategic partnership, with their first project - a 55MWh energy storage facility - to come in Bulgaria.
Hithium has agreed to supply the battery products for the project in the southwest Bulgarian town of Razlog, with Solarpro providing turnkey EPC services. Hithium will supply 16 energy storage containers with a 3,44 MWh capacity, based on the company’s 280 Ah cells, which have an “extra-long” expected lifespan, a statement said.
The new plant will support a photovoltaic installation, with construction of the new facility planned for the start of 2024. The BESS owner will be a subsidiary of the Vienna-based Renalfa IPP.
“As the region’s utility-scale solar production ramps up, energy storage is gaining importance since it enables us to deliver solar-generated energy more reliably,” explained Solarpro CEO, Krasen Mateev. “We are very pleased to take this step with Hithium to accelerate the growth of energy storage in eastern Europe. We have been working on preparation, engineering and development on the joint solution over the past months for this landmark project. We are dedicated to lead the energy transition adding new technologies in our product portfolio.”
Ning (Kelson) Li, Hithium director large-scale BESS project for central, northern, and eastern Europe, said: “We’re proud to collaborate with Solarpro, such an experienced European partner in the sector of renewable energy and battery energy storage system, to start with the ground-breaking for Razlog BESS plant. This project represents our entry into eastern Europe and perfectly reflects the contribution we want to make to the region, scaling up energy storage to stabilise the supply of clean energy.”
Pacific Green Battery Energy Park (Italia) Srl, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pacific Green Technologies, Inc, has acquired 51% of the shares in five Italian battery energy storage projects (BESS) from Sphera Energy Srl.
The remaining 49% of the shares of each Project will be acquired on achievement of certain development milestones.
The first 100MW BESS project in Campania has been submitted to The Ministry of Environment and Energy Security for permitting and the remaining four will be finalised in the coming months.
Final permitting for all five projects is anticipated in Q4 2024, with design and construction to be managed by Pacific Green. The projects will begin their 35 year operating life in late 2025.
Mahael Fedele, Sphera Energy’s CEO, said: “Following our launch 12 months ago as one of Italy’s first fully dedicated battery storage development platforms, we are thrilled to enter into this partnership with Pacific Green to deliver high quality projects in the rapidly growing Italian energy storage market”
Scott Poulter, Pacific Green’s chief executive, added: “Building upon our success with the development and sale of Pacific Green’s 100MWh Richborough Energy Park and the development of the 375MWh Sheaf Energy in the UK, Italy represents the next step in Pacific Green’s European expansion into other markets where battery assets will be key in enabling National and EU Net-Zero targets. In Italy, where market conditions favour longer duration projects, we expect this portfolio to have an energy capacity of between two to three gigawatt hours.”
The cost of living crisis means more people are considering going off-grid, and a new study shows that energy storage could enable two million family homes in Europe to do just that
Reports suggest that, with more and more people feeling the squeeze from an economic perspective, the idea of completely living off-grid – and specifically the reduction in costs that go with it – is becoming more appealing to a growing number of people. There is no doubt that the global economy is navigating choppy waters at present – recent projections from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showed that world economic growth will slow from 3.5 per cent in 2022 to 3 per cent in 2023 and 2.9 percent next year, which, the IMF said, is “well below the historical average”. Economic snapshots of the biggest countries around the world offer a similarly uncertain outlook – according to the IMF, unemployment in the US will steadily increase well into 2024 (though on the plus side, the rate of the increase in unemployment has been revised down in recent months) while, investor and consumer confidence in China, for example, has plummeted since the start of this year.
At a micro-level, individual households are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis that has led to some predictions that a significant number of people in the UK, for example, may opt to live off-grid in large communities. It’s estimated that 150,000 people in the UK live off-grid and it is understood that the total is rising sharply. Speculation that, in future, groups of friends and families will pool resources to buy plots of land and live in “communes” may be wide of the mark, and probably an unrealistic option for many – however, there is a view that house repossessions and changes in circumstances due to increases in the cost of living could force many down this path. A large number have already opted for such a life – in the UK, for example, of the 150,000 people already living off-grid, it is estimated that 15,000 reside in conventional homes, 45,000 live in sheds and other shelters, with thousands of others occupying an array of alternative accommodation, including vans, boats and horse carriages.
There is now speculation that innovations in the energy storage industry could facilitate more widespread off-grid living. For example, the Institution of Engineering and Technology has highlighted battery technology as one of the key innovations that could support an increase in the population moving off-grid. And now a new report from academics at the Germany-based Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has further fuelled the off-grid movement after it proclaimed that two million European single-family homes “could abandon the grid” by 2050, partly as a result of the wider adoption of residential energy storage systems.
The KIT report evaluated the potential for self-sufficient energy supply for 41 million freestanding single-family buildings under current and future – that is, 2050 – conditions. The report concluded that buildings in regions with “low seasonality and high electricity procurement costs have a high potential for self-sufficiency”. It added that, under current techno-economic conditions, 53 per cent of the 41 million buildings are technically able to supply themselves independently “from external infrastructures by only using local rooftop solar irradiation”, and this proportion could increase to 75 per cent by 2050. The report added that by “paying a premium of up to 50 per cent” compared with grid-dependent systems with electrified heat supplies, building owners could make over two million buildings fully energy self-sufficient by 2050.
As the KIT report highlights, while self-sufficient off-grid energy supply was previously considered a niche concept, there is now a growing belief that it is becoming a potentially mainstream idea. The rising cost of energy procurement coupled with the decreasing cost of renewable energy technology means that there is a trend toward individual and independent energy supply systems across the residential sector. Increasingly important considerations in the design of these systems is what KIT describes as “non-monetary criteria” such as high shares of renewables, increased self-control through independence from rising energy carrier prices, or rejection of the use of nuclear and carbon-intensive fossil energy, potentially from regions with questionable governance and values.
This trend is likely to be further fuelled by global political and socioeconomic developments – for example, in the first five months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European gas and electricity wholesale prices increased by 115 per cent and 237 per cent, respectively. As a result, energy self-sufficiency seems an increasingly attractive option from an economic standpoint. Indeed, the growing appeal of energy self-sufficiency is demonstrated by projections showing that the global residential energy storage systems (RESS) market is expected to register a compound annual growth rate of 24. 4% during the forecast period, registering a market value of $13.05 billion in 2027, up from $2.78 billion in 2020.
A significant drop in photovoltaic (PV) system prices in recent years has resulted in grid parity in many European countries, which refers to the point at which the cost of producing electricity from renewable sources is less than or equal to the cost of purchasing electricity from the grid. Meanwhile, it is expected that battery costs will decrease further in the coming years, leading to improved “economic performance” among stationary battery systems, as KIT puts it.
Consequently, KIT concludes that a successful, cost-optimal PV-based self-sufficient energy supply system for buildings in central Europe will consist of a combination of short-term battery storage and a long-term seasonal hydrogen storage system.
While the 2050 timeframe for two million European single-family homes abandoning the grid is some way off, it is important to remember that this is the projection at this point in time. The desire, and drive, for energy self-sufficiency is certain to increase significantly. Part of this will be the result of growing dissatisfaction with grid infrastructure and the organisations that operate it. Earlier this year, for example, the Electricity Storage Network – the UK industry group dedicated to electricity storage – highlighted how the National Grid ESO, the electricity system operator for Great Britain, is failing to make the best use of available energy storage in the balancing mechanism and is, instead, opting for more expensive higher carbon-emitting assets when seeking to balance supply and demand. It’s a situation that has caused anger among investors who say that failure to provide further clarity [in relation to storage ‘skipping’ in the balancing mechanism] is stopping BESS operators from making informed decisions about their commercial strategies, with the result that billions of pounds of investment is being put at risk.
Meanwhile, frustration with the grid, and more specifically grid interconnection, is also growing in the US. A total of 680GW of storage capacity was left marooned in US grid interconnection queues at the end of 2022 and it’s likely that only a fraction of that will actually get built – only 21 per cent of the projects (and 14 per cent of capacity) seeking connection from 2000 to 2017 in the US had been built as of the end of 2022. Grids are failing to successfully accommodate the required levels of energy storage and while that remains the case, the desire for energy self-sufficiency is only going to intensify.
Leeward Renewable Energy has gained $580m tax equity and debt facilities for its 179MW White Wing Ranch Solar and 80MW GSG Wind projects in Arizona and Illinois.
The firm is due to complete the repowering of the 80MW GSG Wind project next month; and its new-build White Wing Ranch project in the second half of 2024. The tax equity commitment was made by Wells Fargo, and the debt facility was provided by Mizuho Bank, National Bank of Canada, Société Générale and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.
GE Vernova's Financial Services arm has set up a joint venture with Alfanar Energia's Spanish business to develop 334MW of onshore wind and solar projects.
The joint venture is set to develop five wind farms and three solar plants in Spain's Castilla La Mancha, Castilla y León and Comunidad Valenciana regions, and explore further wind, solar and storage projects.
The government of Brazilian state Piaui has awarded Spanish developer Solatio a preliminary environmental license for a 11GW solar-and-hydrogen complex.
The company is looking to power green hydrogen production with solar energy. The hydrogen plant is part of an Export Processing Zone in Parnaiba, which would export green fuels to Brazilian companies and to Europe. Solatio plans to invest around €18.7bn in the hydrogen and solar plants in the next five years.
Octopus Energy has secured £190m cornerstone investment from Tokyo Gas for a fund that is poised to invest £3bn in offshore wind globally by 2030.
The investment from Tokyo Gas has helped Octopus Energy to establish its first offshore wind fund, which is set to focus on fixed-bottom and floating projects in Europe. Octopus manages £6bn of renewable energy projects and made its first investments in offshore wind in 2022.
Danish developer European Energy and Brazilian fuel giant Petrobras have teamed up to explore opportunities to set up an e-methanol factory in Brazil.
European Energy entered Brazil in 2016 and has built 187MW of wind and solar capacity, as well as a development pipeline of 1.5GW across the South American country. It is now working with Petrobras to find ways to accelerate Brazil's transition to green fuels.
Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners has hailed the start of construction at its 495MW Buffalo Plains wind farm in Canada, which is set to be the country's largest.
CIP is developing the project, which is set to be made up of 83 Siemens Gamesa turbines, via its Copenhagen Infrastructure IV fund. CIP bought the project in Vulcan Country, Alberta, from ABO Wind in 2022; and is due to commission it in December 2024.
Amazon has signed a 415MW power purchase agreement for electricity from Buffalo Plains.
Spanish oil and gas giant Repsol has sold a 49% stake in a 618MW portfolio of wind and solar projects in Spain to investment group Pontegadea for €363m.
The portfolio is made up of 12 wind farms totalling 398MW in the regions of Aragon and Castile & Leon; and two solar farms totalling 220MW in Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia. Repsol said the portfolio includes projects with hybridisation potential, which could add up to 279MW of headline capacity.
The deal values the assets at €740m.
California-based battery management technology company Element Energy has confirmed the close of a $111 million capital raise comprised of a $73 million Series B equity investment and a $38 million debt facility provided by Keyframe Capital Partners.
The Series B round is co-led by “one of the largest clean energy generation companies” in the US and Cohort Ventures. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Drive Catalyst, FM Capital, and AFW Partners joined the Series B round, along with existing investors LG Technology Ventures, Edison International,, Prelude Ventures, and Radar Partners. Debt and equity capital was provided by Keyframe.
Founded in 2019, Element has developed “proprietary hardware and software algorithms applicable to both first and second life batteries to improve visualisation, battery safety, and efficiency”, an Element statement said.
The statement added: “Element’s technology is being validated on a large scale with a 50 MWh pilot project in the United States, which is expected to be completed in early 2024. Element will collect necessary data through its pilot project, obtain UL certification, and proceed to commercialise the product.”
Tony Stratakos, CEO and co-founder, Element Energy, said: “We founded Element with the mission to speed the adoption of clean energy with technology honed in the semiconductor industry. Seeing a soaring number of new battery storage installations, our market-leading partners are realising the value of improving the safety, lifetime and efficiency of batteries. With the additional capital and global partnerships from our Series B, we will further invest in and deploy our technology across target markets and applications, including SaaS for existing and new energy storage systems, hardware and software for new energy storage systems, and full battery energy storage systems using second life batteries.”
Shin Gomi, general manager in business development, growth strategy office of MHI, said: “MHI is committed to the energy transition, and energy storage systems are an important piece of the energy transition equation. MHI is pleased to invest in Element Energy for their outstanding diagnostic and management technologies. We look forward to ongoing collaboration with Element Energy to provide affordable energy solutions in the behind-the-meter space worldwide.”
Mark Norman, managing partner of FM Capital, said: “FM Capital has been impressed by the team at Element since our first meeting. Element’s patented technology dramatically improves battery pack performance, safety and useful life, reducing cost, weight and warranty expense for automotive customers. FM Capital is excited for Element to apply their solution in automotive EVs as well as second life applications for battery reuse.”
Juliana Pidner Hsu, managing director of Drive Catalyst, the corporate venture capital arm of the Far Eastern Group, said: “As one of Taiwan’s largest and most diversified conglomerates, Far Eastern Group is fully committed to decarbonising operations and propelling green energy development. Energy storage may be one of the most critical areas for the energy transition blueprint of our group. We believe and support Element Energy’s efforts in making battery storage systems more reliable, efficient, and sustainable.”
Ethan Goldsmith, partner, Keyframe Capital, said: “We are thrilled to support Element Energy as they leverage their proprietary hardware and battery management system to both dramatically improve battery system performance, including energy throughput, system life, and economics and enable second life batteries to safely and efficiently be repurposed in stationary storage applications.”
Power marketer Gridmatic has confirmed the second closing of its first energy storage fund, bringing capital commitments to $50 million.
The fund will oversee the management of up to 500 MW of battery capacity in the ERCOT and CAISO markets.
CAISO and ERCOT, which respectively manage California’s and Texas’ grids, remain the two strongest markets for energy storage with pipelines of 43.7 GW and 32 GW respectively in planned project capacity. Gridmatic has already begun operating a 50MW / 100MWh battery storage system in Texas, which is backed by the fund.
Gridmatic establishes multi-year offtake contracts to operate energy storage systems using its AI algorithms, ensuring steady revenue streams for projects. This enables developers to obtain the necessary financing for projects and recycle their capital into the development of additional storage systems. By decoupling active management of the batteries from project development, Gridmatic says its fund derisks the operational phase of a project for storage owners.
Gridmatic says its AI-enabled optimisation can boost revenue generation for grid-tied storage systems by as much as 46 per cent.
Erin Kogan, chief financial officer at Gridmatic, says: “Gridmatic’s energy storage fund presents a unique opportunity for investors to help drive battery growth and capitalise on energy market volatility. The need to grow the grid’s reserve of AI-optimised energy storage, bolstered by our strong early returns in the initial months of operation, drove strong interest from leading energy investors in our fund.”
European transmission system operators Statnett and TenneT are exploring how they can install an interconnector between Germany and Norway in the North Sea.
An interconnector between Germany and Norway would enable the TSOs to connect offshore wind farms to the grids of both countries simultaneously, and could make cross-border energy trading in Europe more efficient.
The UK Government has raised the maximum strike price for fixed-bottom offshore wind farms in its sixth Contracts for Difference auction round by 66% to £73/MWh.
It has made the change in response to inflation that has hit the developers of offshore wind projects in the UK, as well as other global markets. It has also boosted the maximum strike price of floating wind projects by 52% to £176/MWh, and made increases for solar, geothermal and tidal projects too.
The UK Government has also proposed further financial incentives for projects that demonstrate positive community impacts and reduced carbon emissions.
Opportunities for developers in the US are plentiful after the Inflation Reduction Act, but the challenges are growing too. We spoke to one developer, Bluestar Energy Capital, about its diversification plans.
The next 12 months will be pivotal for US climate policy.
The Biden administration has put renewable energy at the heart of its policy agenda since Joe Biden beat Donald Trump to the presidency in November 2020. This led to flagship legislation such as the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act of 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Both acts have boosted developer activity in the US.
However, in 2024, voters will pass judgement on whether they like what they’ve seen as Biden and Trump look set to battle for the presidency once more. If Biden and the Democrats lose, they may have to watch helplessly as their ‘green’ policies are reversed. The differences between the parties are stark where renewable energy is concerned.
For developers, the challenge before the election is to prepare themselves in case of seismic policy shifts. The US has been the priority for many developers in the last 12 because of the sheer scale of the IRA, but we expect more to diversify over the next year as they see opportunities in other parts of the world.
A Word About Wind spoke to Neil O’Donovan, president and chief commercial officer at Bluestar Energy Capital, to get his views on the opportunities and challenges for US developers. He joined Bluestar in October to reunite with its founder, Declan Flanagan. The pair have worked together since O’Donovan joined Flanagan’s previous business Lincoln Clean Energy, which was acquired by Danish utility Ørsted in 2018. O’Donovan led Ørsted’s onshore renewables business in the US, and now focuses on growing and building Bluestar’s 4GW of wind, solar and storage projects in the US and Australia.
O’Donovan says the economic situation facing developers is “as difficult as it’s ever been”, even though the IRA means “there’s never been a better time to be providing green electrons”. Bluestar launched in September 2022, and O’Donovan says 1GW of its developments are poised to reach financial close in the next 12-18 months. The firms develops in the US via its subsidiary Nova Clean Energy, and has subsidiaries in Australia and Europe too. It is looking to conclude its first deals in Europe in 2025.
He explains that the IRA was a “huge opportunity” for developers, and so scaling its US business has been Bluestar’s priority. But he says there are “huge ambitions and huge requirements” in Europe too, so the continent features in its near-term plans.
“You have to be quite specific about whether you want to be in northern or southern Europe, because they are very different, but they are big enough so they will be very enticing. And then obviously Australia: it isn’t as big as those other two regions, but there are definitely opportunities in Australia for where we want to go,” he says.
O’Donovan says Bluestar is focused on utility-scale onshore projects, including wind, solar and storage, but said it would consider power-to-X too: “We’re looking at that very closely. I think most people in the renewable energy space are,” he says. “For now, though, it’s definitely the focus on projects that will provide electrons to those markets but, as green hydrogen of power-to-X matures, that will be enticing.”
He says the biggest challenges for developers are similar across renewable energy markets: inadequate transmission infrastructure, slow permitting processes, and the challenges facing the supply chain. But he adds that there are further challenges for companies that want to grow by acquiring projects, including whether projects are being priced correctly and whether projects billed as ‘ready to build’ really are.
“There is an active M&A market, but how many of those opportunities are executable is more of the challenge,” he says.
O’Donovan says asset prices have come down in the last 12-24 months because of the difficult conditions in the world economy, which have affected buyers’ appetite for risk in their deals. He adds that a good way to make progress on difficult projects is where developers can co-develop with partners that align with them on strategy.
The IRA has led to great opportunities for developers in the US, but this must be set against the stronger economic headwinds that companies are facing. Diversification should help US developers if there is another political earthquake in 2024.
Colbún, the third largest power generation company in Chile, has signed an agreement with RheEnergise, the UK clean technology company, to explore the potential deployment of RheEnergise’s long-duration hydro-energy storage, known as ‘High-Density Hydro’ (HD Hydro).
Colbún and RheEnergise will work together to evaluate the feasibility of building a 10MW, 10-hour HD Hydro system in Chile. Colbún sees the deployment of RheEnergise’s HD Hydro as a way to “complement its existing portfolio of hydro, wind and solar projects”, a statement said.
RheEnergise's HD Hydro technology is particularly attractive in Chile because it is not affected by water scarcity risks. It represents RheEnergise’s first commercial venture in South America - the company will undertake investigations and technical studies of potential sites for its technology, while Colbún will provide RheEnergise with local market knowledge, advice on planning and permitting and on utility connections.
Subject to the outcome of this work, to be carried out over the next 12 months, the two companies are aiming to have their first 10MW scheme in commercial operation by 2030.
Stephen Crosher, chief executive of RheEnergise said: “We are delighted that Colbún, one of the leading renewable energy companies in South America, has chosen to partner RheEnergise. Colbún recognises the value that LDES offers to their existing renewables assets and how LDES can support the company’s growth. Our HD Hydro technology can provide Colbún with medium and long duration energy storage, can quickly and easily be constructed and can help Colbún achieve its net zero and sustainability goals.”
Diego García, Colbún’s innovation manager said: “Innovation is key for the energy transition. Technological advances in solar and wind power makes them the leading sources of green energy in many parts of the world. Now, we need new storage solutions to cope with the intermittency of renewable energy, and the technology that RheEnergise is developing could have a key role in this regard.”
SUSI Partners, through the SUSI Energy Transition Fund, is to expand its partnership with Chilean clean energy developer BIWO Renovables to develop two large-scale, hybrid solar PV and battery storage projects with a combined generation capacity of 232 MWp and battery storage capacity of up to 900 MWh.
The two designated projects are located in the Santiago metropolitan area and are expected to start construction in 2025.
The transaction expands on an existing framework agreement between SUSI and BIWO for the development, construction, and operation of distributed solar PV and wind assets. BIWO will manage development, construction, and operation of projects, while SUSI developing the battery storage business cas and overseeing financial structuring.
The new agreement with BIWO follows SUSI announcing the expansion of its Italian solar PV platform, ReFeel New Energy, to develop utility-scale battery energy storage systems.
WindEurope has hit back at claims by BASF chief executive Martin Brudermüller that Chinese wind turbines are cheaper and better than those made by European firms.
Brudermüller made the statement in an interview with German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine on Saturday 11th November. He said Chinese turbine makers were "technically better" than European firms, as well as being cheaper, and added that this was based on BASF's experience of building wind farms in Europe and China.
In response, WindEurope said it was "very surprised" by the claim and that other developers in Europe were "happy with the European turbines they have installed and would like to be able to continue sourcing European turbines". It also reiterated its call for support in the European Union's Wind Energy Package.