Energy company Enel Green Power announced the completion of the Azure Sky wind plus storage project, a wind plus storage facility in Texas. The project, which started in 2019, pairs 350 megawatts of wind power with 136.5 megawatts, equivalent to a 204.6 MWh battery storage energy system(BESS). The plant is located in Throckmorton County, Texas. Enel will also add 57MW/85.7MWh battery storage facilities to its Roadrunner solar farm and the High Lonesome wind facility in Texas.
In the past, most energy companies focused on solar plus battery storage rather than wind. This is because, unlike the sun with a daily generation profile, the wind is more irregular. Wind generation is usually minimal, requiring a larger battery size.
Paolo Romanacci, head of Enel Green Power in the US and Canada, said, ‘We’re committed to connecting Texans with clean and cost-effective electricity through our renewable projects. The Azure Sky wind + storage project and storage additions at Roadrunner and High Lonesome help to add measurable value in the form of storage capacity and reliability to support the state’s electricity system. Enel Green Power’s projects provide more generation, more resource diversity, and more dispatchable storage – three key elements of Texas’s goal to reform its power grid.’
At the start of the project, the cereal company, Kellogg, signed a long-term power purchase(PPA). Enel will supply Kellogg 360GWh of its expected 1300GWh annual power generation. Other companies like HP Hood and Lululemon signed the PPA. Also, Akamai, Synopsys, MilliporeSigma, and Uber signed an aggregated PPA with Enel.
Azure Sky project will support and provide reliability to the Texas power grid in peak energy demand periods. During extremely hot periods, like this summer, the hybrid plant will deliver clean energy and storage resources for Texans. Also, it will serve as a balance for the renewables-saturated western region of ERCOT. The project is accompanied by the Azure Sky solar plus storage, which pairs a 284 megawatts solar photovoltaic system with 95 megawatts of battery storage. It is under construction in Haskell County.
The three key elements that Texas seeks to use to upgrade its power grid include more generation, resource diversity, and more dispatchable storage. Enel successfully provides these elements.
Enel Green Power is one of North America’s leading developers of renewable energy plants. It has about 8 gigawatts of energy generation and 64 plants already installed. Currently, about 2 gigawatts of energy and 600MW of battery storage are under construction in six projects within Texas.
While Enel has three solar and wind plus storage facilities in Texas, Azure Sky is its first large-scale hybrid wind project. The company is constructing two large-scale wind farms in Illinois and Ohio, with outputs of 200 megawatts and 140 megawatts, respectively. Roseland project is Enel’s newest project, which will be the biggest solar plus storage project in North America.
The completion of this project demonstrates Enel’s investments in storage solutions. It will have a record of 12 battery storage with 1290MWh storage capacity in Texas. And by 2024, it seeks to add 6.5 gigawatts of renewable energy and 2600 MWh of storage capacity to Texas, the US, and Canada’s grids.
We have a team of industry experts and content curators to offer readers the latest updates about Renewable energy, Microgrids and Green Finance. Our stories have been published in some major news publications and we strive to create awareness and help save our planet through clean energy.