Developer Spearmint Energy has acquired a portfolio of battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 900MW in the ERCOT, Texas market, set to come online in 2025.
Spearmint Energy, which was formed recently and bought its first project in mid-2022, has acquired the portfolio from “one of the largest developers and operators of clean energy projects in the United States”.
The portfolio is called ‘Nomadic’ and comprises three projects of 300MW each located in the counties of Cooke, Galveston, and Brazoria. The projects may reach a combined energy capacity of 2,000MWh of an average duration of 2.2 hours.
The Spearmint team will now complete the remaining development work for the portfolio and the first project is set to reach notice to proceed in early 2024 and with a commercial operation date (COD) some 12-18 months later.
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It builds on the firms purchase of a Revolution, a 150MW/300 MWh project in West Texas, on which engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor Mortensen began construction in November 2022 with an estimate COD in mid-2023.
Andrew Waranch, Spearmint CEO and recent author of a guest blog for Energy-Storage.news said: “A collection of state-of-the-art energy storage projects, Nomadic will enable Spearmint to continue to execute our mission of facilitating the clean energy revolution through the delivery of renewable power to the grid efficiently, safely, and where communities need it most.”
Texas is the second-largest BESS market in the US with around 2.7GW operational as of the end of 2022. The interconnection queue is in the high double-digit of gigawatts and growing.
BESS projects in the state mainly provide ancillary services RRS (regulation reserve service) and RRS-FFR (fast frequency response) as well as energy trading around the most congested nodes of the grid. The state has a highly deregulated energy sector with no centralised capacity auctions and relative freedom to set up generating units to play into energy markets.
The devastation of Storm Uri in February 2021, which saw millions of people go days without power and directly or indirectly led to several hundred deaths (or more), provided a stark reminder of increasing the grid’s resiliency and reliability.
ERCOT is effectively an islanded grid, with no interconnections to either the Eastern or Western Interconnections, the US’ two large grids within which its several ISOs (CAISO, PJM, MISO etc) operate different territories.
Energy-Storage.news’ publisher Solar Media will host the 5th Energy Storage Summit USA, next week on 28-29 March 2023 in Austin, Texas. Featuring a packed programme of panels, presentations and fireside chats from industry leaders focusing on accelerating the market for energy storage across the country. For more information, go to the website.
