Wartsila has won a contract to supply a 40MW / 80 megawatt-hour DC-coupled storage system for the Hickory Park solar project in Georgia, US, being developed by RWE Renewables.
Delivery of the Wartsila storage system is scheduled for September 2021, and the plant is expected to commence commercial operations in November.
Wartsila’s GEMS digital energy platform will control the entire hybrid plant, comprising close to 200MW solar PV as well as the 40MW battery.
The Wartsila system will enable a subsidiary of RWE Renewables, Hickory Park Solar, to sell nearly 200MW of generation from the solar farm to Georgia Power Company.
Wartsila’s IntelliBidder auto-bidding solution allows Hickory Park Solar to provide Georgia Power a day-ahead firming solar plus storage profile, which will improve the predictability of the intermittent generation.
The cloud-based IntelliBidder uses machine learning and algorithms based on automated and forecasted data, taking real-time trading and combining it with a smart control platform that provides value-based asset management and portfolio optimisation.
DC-coupling allows a number of benefits, such as improved system efficiency, lower balance of plant costs, and clipped solar recapture.
With storage attached to the solar system, the batteries can be charged with excess solar generation when the PV farm reaches its peak and would otherwise begin clipping.
The stored energy can be introduced into the grid at the appropriate time, maximising the value of the system’s generation.
Wartsila Energy energy storage and optimisation vice president Andy Tang said: “For us, this is a milestone project of renewable integration involving solar PV plus energy storage, with the batteries being charged entirely from the solar system.
“It is one of the very few projects globally on this scale using DC-coupling. The flexibility and broad capabilities of the GEMS software enable effective and efficient control over the entire system, which is essential in this 80MWh project with the GridSolv Quantum ESS.”