Longroad Energy has achieved financial close on a large-scale solar-plus-storage in Arizona, part of a portfolio it acquired from vertically integrated solar manufacturer First Solar.
Renewable energy developer Longroad announced the financial closing on 1 November and added that construction has begun on its Sun Streams 4 project. Sun Streams 4 will feature 377MWdc of ground mount solar PV, and a 300MW/1,200MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
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Despite the numbering, the project is actually the third in Longroad’s Sun Streams complex of solar PV and batteries. The previous addition, Sun Streams 3, achieved financial close in January, with energy storage system integrator Powin signed up to provide that plant’s 215MW/860MWh BESS, which will be paired with 285MWdc of solar PV.
Longroad acquired the Sun Streams portfolio from the development arm of US thin-film PV manufacturer First Solar in 2021. Along with Sun Streams 3 and Sun Streams 4, there is also the already-operational Sun Streams 2, which is a standalone 200MWdc solar PV plant that went online in mid-2021.
First Solar has provided the modules for the other projects and this relationship continues with Sun Streams 4, set to be equipped with the manufacturer’s Series 6 Plus modules. In fact, as reported by PV Tech in September, Longroad Energy has signed supply contracts for 8GW of modules with First Solar since 2017, extending the deal to add another 2GW last month.
The cadmium-telluride (CdTe) thin-film manufacturer released its latest quarterly results this week, noting a backlog of 81.8GW which will extend into 2030, as well as a 14% quarter-on-quarter increase in module production and US$801 million in net sales for Q3 2023.
Other contractors and suppliers have been retained for the full Sun Streams portfolio too.
Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor McCarthy Building Companies has been selected for the new project as well as the previous two.
Powin returns as BESS provider and integrator. As with Sun Streams 3, Powin will integrate battery cells from AESC into the plant, as well as energy storage inverters and power conversion system (PCS) equipment from SMA.
On the solar side of the installation, inverters will be provided once again by Sungrow and trackers by Nextracker. Operations and maintenance (O&M) duties will be carried out by Longroad and affiliate Longroad Energy Services, together with O&M provider NovaSource Power Services. Powin will also be involved in O&M on the battery system.
To read the full version of this story, visit Energy-Storage.news.
