The use of co-located storage projects will also be of note for the US renewables sector, with paired battery facilities an increasingly important part of the solar industry in particular. A 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that 34% of under-construction solar projects were paired with batteries, compared to just 6% for wind and natural gas projects, suggesting that solar could be one of the leading technologies as the battery sector continues to grow.
However, questions remain as to the scalability of solar-plus-storage projects, with speakers at a panel on co-located projects at Solar Media’s Energy Storage Summit this week expressing concern that there is “no proven commercial model” for such projects. Yet this has not dissuaded Schneider Electric and ENGIE from investing in the space.
“Schneider Electric is committed to achieving net zero emissions across our operations by 2030,” said Schneider Electric president of North America Operations Aamir Paul, drawing attention to the benefits offered by the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022.
“The IRA opens the door for innovative projects through its transferability clause and expands the range of entities that can benefit from tax credits in meeting decarbonisation objectives.”
The IRA allowed companies to exchange tax credits for clean power generation, offering companies without tax or equity experience an opportunity to invest in clean power projects. This has helped encourage a new wave of clean power investments in the US, with Carl Fleming, a partner at US law firm McDermott Will & Emery, telling PV Tech Premium that this has encouraged a “great rethink” of investments in the US power sector.
The news follows a number of collaborations between Schneider Electric and ENGIE. These include the signing of virtual power purchase agreements with a total capacity of 1.6GW in North America; one of the more traditional forms of investment in the power sector. The combination of such a varied range of investments comes when financial commitments to clean energy projects are at an all-time high, with Bloomberg New Energy Finance finding that US$1.8 trillion was invested into the renewable power sector alone in 2023.
“This collaboration with Schneider signals a real step forward in accelerating the net zero transition,” said Dave Carroll, chief renewables officer and senior vice president at ENGIE North America. “The solar-plus-storage portfolio, coupled with the innovative tax credit transfer structures enabled by the IRA, helps expand the opportunities for an increasing set of corporate clients to meet their goals.”
