Longroad Energy starts commercial operations at 111MW solar-plus-storage project

By April Bonner
May 6, 2026
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Longroad Energy's Sun Pond solar-plus-storage project.
Sun Pond is part of Longroad’s Sun Streams Complex, which consists of four projects with a combined capacity of 973MW of solar PV. Image: Longroad Energy.

US independent power producer (IPP) Longroad Energy has started commercial operations at its Sun Pond solar-plus-storage project in the US state of Arizona.

Announced 5 May, Sun Pond combines 111MW of solar PV generation with a 85MW/340MWh battery energy storage system (BESS), and has long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with California community choice aggregators (CCA) Ava Community Energy and  San José Clean Energy (SJCE).

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In December 2024, Longroad announced financial close of Sun Pond, noting that construction company McCarthy Building Companies would act as the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor on the project.

Additionally, the BESS cells would be provided by Japan-headquartered lithium-ion battery manufacturer Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC), which is majority owne by Chinese firm Envision Energy.

Longroad has specified that Fluence’s Gridstack BESS solution was used at Sun Pond. PV modules from First Solar, smart trackers from Nextpower, and solar inverters from Sungrow were also used in the project.

Sun Pond is part of Longroad’s Sun Streams Complex, which is made up of three additional projects, and brings the Complex’s total capacity to 973MW solar PV and 600MW/2,400MWh BESS.

Read the full version of this story on our sister site, Energy-Storage.news.

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