A news roundup focusing on TerraFlow’s recent partnership with Storion, JinkoSolar’s deployment of distributed systems in Massachusetts and a credit facility for Lightshift.
TerraFlow and Storion sign agreement to advance vanadium battery storage
Long-duration energy storage (LDES) developer TerraFlow has signed a strategic supply agreement with vanadium flow battery joint venture Storion Energy.
The agreement will see Storion providing its vanadium electrolyte production and manufacturing abilities to scale TerraFlow’s skid-based architecture.
TerraFlow and Storion’s collaboration focuses on three key areas: “optimised stack integration, manufacturing excellence and cost reduction.”
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Optimising stack integration will improve efficiency and performance by applying advanced engineering methods.
Achieving manufacturing excellence requires expanding production capacity to satisfy increasing market demand.
Cost reduction will be accomplished by enhancing cost-effectiveness through design and process innovations.
TerraFlow uses its “Long Duration Uninterruptible Power Supply” (LDUPS) energy storage solutions to power data centres, microgrids, remote infrastructure and more.
The company, based in Katy, Texas, says the LDUPS systems are built using large-format tank architecture for scale, serviceability and uptime.
Storion is a joint venture formed in February between Largo Clean Energy, a leading vanadium producer, and Stryten Energy, a company specialising in multi-technology energy storage solutions.
The company integrates Largo’s access to the Maracás Menchen Mine in Bahia, Brazil, the sole vanadium mine in the western hemisphere, with Stryten’s battery storage solutions.
Speaking with Energy-Storage.news Premium in April, Travis Torrey, CTO of Storion, said of the company’s ambitions:
“Our first approach has been to create a domestic supply chain. That lets us be local in a way that many companies are not.”
“One of the challenges in energy storage is actually getting batteries to various sites. By building a supply chain here in the US, we’re cutting a lot of the logistics costs involved in getting batteries up and running.”
JinkoSolar commissions 21.6MWh of BESS in Massachusetts
The energy storage arm of major vertically integrated Chinese solar PV manufacturer JinkoSolar has commissioned 21.6MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) supplied to Distributed Energy Infrastructure (DEI) in Massachusetts.
DEI, an engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) services provider, developed and constructed the three systems, which are now operational under Massachusetts’ Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target (SMART) programme.
JinkoSolar says its US-based energy storage engineering team significantly contributed to the project’s success through providing system design expertise and by ensuring smooth integration with various power conditioning systems (PCS) and energy management systems (EMS).
DEI-led turnkey project execution included development support, system design, procurement, construction and commissioning.
The SMART programme promotes solar energy development by providing guaranteed extra payments to system owners, linked to the electricity generated by community solar projects or behind-the-meter systems.
Recently, Massachusetts took steps to further its goal of procuring 5,000MW of energy storage by 2030.
The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) collaborated with the state’s electric distribution companies (EDCs) to submit a draft request for proposals (RFP) to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU), aiming to procure 1,500MW of mid-duration BESS.
Sean Harrington, CEO and Founder of Distributed Energy Infrastructure, said of the commissioned systems:
“We chose JinkoSolar to supply the batteries for this portfolio due to their strong U.-based service team, more than 15 years of experience supporting similar projects, and their proven, robust technology.”
“Working directly with JinkoSolar’s US commissioning team helped us streamline system integration and accelerate time to operation, ensuring our clients received the full benefit of a tightly managed, end-to-end solution.”
Lightshift secures US$40 million credit facility
US storage and solar developer-operator Lightshift Energy announced financial close of a US$40 million credit facility with Aiga Capital Partners.
Lightshift says the facility will be used to support its growing portfolio by funding interconnection and power purchase agreement (PPA) security requirements, equipment deposits and other uses.
The company also notes the useful timing of the facility as a “significant portion” of its pipeline moves into construction in the second half of 2025 and throughout 2026.
In April 2024, Lightshift, formerly Delorean Power, received US$100 million from two separate sustainable infrastructure investment funds managed by Greenbacker Capital Management, with an 80/20 allocation.
In May of this year, the company announced it would build Vermont’s largest BESS to date, a 16MW/52MWh project set to begin construction later in the year.
The company also announced an 11MW project for the city of Danville, Virginia. Danville II is Lightshift’s second BESS with the city. To advance projects for the region, Lightshift received US$1.5 million in funding from the Virginia Tobacco Region Revitalisation Commission’s Energy Ingenuity Fund.
Lightshift was also the developer behind a portfolio of distributed grid-scale BESS projects in Massachusetts, which in 2024 marked the first US deployments by Trina Storage, the BESS arm of Trinasolar, which, like JinkoSolar, is among China’s biggest vertically integrated solar PV companies.
Angel Fierro, Managing Partner at Aiga Capital Partners, said of the US$40 million facility:
“Lightshift has demonstrated both the technical expertise and disciplined execution needed to drive the next generation of battery storage deployment, and we are excited to support their ambitious build-out.”
