Optimisation platform provider Ascend Analytics and EPC firm SolarMax Technologies have announced battery storage projects by clients and partners in Texas’ ERCOT market.
Adapture Renewables brings online 50MWh
Solar developer Adapture Renewables has brought online two standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) projects totalling 50MWh of capacity to connect to the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid and wholesale market.
The completion of the two projects, in Texas’ Collin County and Kimble County, was announced yesterday (5 August) by market intelligence and analytics provider Ascend Analytics.
Ascend Analytics’ SmartBidder bid optimisation and scheduling platform will optimise the assets’ participation in the ERCOT market. Although the companies held off from the announcement until this week, the projects have been in operation since the late first quarter of this year.
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Adapture is also bringing online a third project in Galveston County, which will bring the developer’s operational Texas BESS portfolio to 74MWh.
The trio are the company’s first battery storage projects to come online, although it acquired a solar-plus-storage hybrid project in development by Samsung C&T Renewables in March. The 110MW solar, 110MW BESS project in Colorado is expected to enter into commercial operation in 2029.
That project acquisition was announced shortly after Adapture secured US$321 million in financing for a 441MW solar portfolio in Illinois and Arkansas. The developer currently has around 815MWp of solar PV plants in operation and, in late June, signed Environmental Attributes Purchase Agreements (EAPAs) with social media firm Meta for 330MW of solar from projects in those two states.
In an interview with ESN Premium earlier this year, Ascend Analytics CEO Dr. Gary Dorris discussed the evolution of revenue-generating opportunities for battery storage operators in ERCOT. Dorris said that where ancillary services had been a major revenue source for batteries, saturation of ancillary services markets means that energy trading is starting to take a bigger share.
The company’s SmartBidder uses AI forecasts of market conditions and bid optimisation agents to increase the profitability of BESS in day-ahead and real-time markets.
Longfellow BESS’ 430MWh project in Pecos County
Another service provider announced its client’s Texas project this week. Engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firm SolarMax Technology said it had been contracted to work on a new 430MWh standalone BESS project in Peco County.
The customer is Longfellow BESS I LLC. According to a recent LinkedIn post by California-headquartered battery storage investor Infinite Grid Capital, it is behind the project, which will have 160MW output to its 430MWh storage capacity, and will integrate into an existing natural gas facility.
According to Infinite Grid Capital, which intends to exit the project “immediately post commercial operation date (COD),” Longfellow BESS I will also be co-located with solar PV and a future AI data centre, which the company claimed will be one of the largest in the US.
SolarMax Technology has acquired an 8% stake in Longfellow BESS I LLC, and will deliver full-scope EPC services, including design, installation, testing, startup and commissioning for the BESS and associated high-voltage interconnection infrastructure. The company said the contract would generate around US$127.3 million revenue.
SolarMax CEO David Hsu said the project validated the company’s strategy of diversifying from residential solar to commercial-scale EPC work.
Hsu added that supplier discussions are “nearing conclusion” and that the company was confident the project could be delivered on time for its scheduled completion date of 30 June 2026.
