New HOrizons Ahead (NHOA) secured more than 600MWh of contracted battery storage projects in October, including a new 420MWh order from its majority shareholder TCC in Taiwan.
The energy transition technology company said yesterday that Taiwan Cement Corporation has selected it as supplier for two battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 160MW / 420MWh.
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The pair will deliver frequency regulation ancillary services to transmission system operator Taiwan Power Corporation (Taipower). Taipower’s frequency regulation market was launched in 2020 and the grid operator is thought to be procuring about 590MW of energy storage capacity for it over the next four years through tenders.
NHOA’s projects will be deployed at a cement plant (110MWh) and an industrial park (310MWh) and will be owned and operated by TCC Group. NHOA said that the Taipower frequency regulation is among the most advanced and challenging ancillary services schemes in the world as it overlaps a number of different services including frequency regulation and load-shifting.
The opportunity has already drawn in other international energy storage industry players including Wärtsilä and Powin Energy.
Powin said in July that it completed installation of a 2MW / 3MWh BESS in partnership with local industrial equipment company TPE Energy to perform Energy Storage Automated Frequency Control (AFC) Frequency Regulation Reserve Supporting Service. Powin senior VP Danny Lu said at the time that AFC is “the main application for energy storage projects currently under operation and tender in the Taiwan market”.
In August, Wärtsilä said it had been contracted to supply a 5.2MW / 5.2MWh BESS by Shang Fa Construction on behalf of customer North-Star International, an operator of gasoline stations and provider of automotive industry services. Wärtsilä’s energy business director for North and South East Asia, Nicolas Leong, described the Taiwan market as “competitive”.
October contracts bring NHOA closer to ‘Masterplan’ targets
TCC completed its acquisition of a 60.5% stake in New HOrizons Ahead (NHOA) in July. Known at the time as ENGIE EPS, the new majority owner led a rebrand for the company including its new name and launched it officially a month later.
At the time of the transaction, company leadership said the combination of Italy-headquartered ENGIE EPS’ industry experience and TCC’s access to a world-class manufacturing base in Asia would enable it to succeed.
The takeover was followed by an announcement of a new strategic ‘Masterplan’ which involved growing the company tenfold under a number of financial and deployment metrics.
That included achieving a target of installing 1.7GWh of energy storage by 2025, as well as thousands of electric vehicle (EV) chargers and other smart clean energy technologies.
This morning, NHOA, which is listed on the EuroNext Paris stock exchange, said that the two Taiwan projects, as well as the 200MWh BESS project in Australia announced earlier this month, brings it to 1,342MWh of contracted projects under development.
TCC and NHOA chairman Nelson Chang noted that this meant almost 50% of the company’s projects under development globally are in the Asia-Pacific region.
“In the wake of COP26, the future of our world depends on actions on green energy and carbon reduction. And green energy depends on storage. This is a great example of effective and proactive cooperation between Europe and Asia to deploy large scale energy storage systems to support energy carbon reduction,” Chang said.