Solar Plus Battery Project Begins Operations in California
WASHINGTON — EDF Renewables North America announced last week that it has begun operations at its long-awaited solar-plus-storage Desert Quartzite project in Riverside, California.
EDF Renewables, a regional subsidiary of French energy giant EDF, said the electricity generated from the 375 MW solar project, combined with a 150 MWac/4-hour battery energy storage system, is being delivered to Clean Power Alliance under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
Desert Quartzite, located on federal lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management, is designed to store electricity during peak hours for solar generation in a series of batteries.
This stored energy is then dispatched later in the day or night to help manage capacity demand, creating a balance between electricity generation and demand.
“EDF Renewables recognizes the growing importance of battery energy storage systems as a complementary market to our core generation business. These systems provide reliable, affordable and clean energy even in the absence of sunlight,” said Devon Muto, vice president, west development, at EDF Renewables.
“During the peak construction phase of the project, we were able to create 450 jobs, and we are particularly proud of our safety practices which resulted in zero recordable incidents during the two-year construction phase of the project,” Muto said.
At full capacity, Desert Quartzite is expected to generate enough electricity to meet the consumption needs of more than 163,000 average California homes.
This is equivalent to avoiding over 669,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually, which represents the greenhouse gas emissions from more than 145,000 passenger vehicles driven over the course of one year.
Dan can be reached at dan@thewellnews.com and @DanMcCue
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