Hawaiian Electric Reveals Full List of Winners From Its Big Energy Storage Procurement


Hawaiian Electric this week revealed the full list of winners from its second large-scale procurement of energy storage and renewables for the islands of Oahu, Maui and Hawaii. The winners run the gamut from major industry players like AES and Engie to relative newcomers to the large-scale energy storage game. 

The contracts were first  announced on May 15  without naming the developers, to give each an opportunity to communicate with communities near their project sites to negotiate local land-use issues before a broad public announcement.

The winners include:

AES Distributed Energy, a subsidiary of U.S.-based energy company AES, which through its  Fluence joint venture  with Siemens has developed the world’s largest fleet of grid-scale batteries. AES won bids for two Oahu projects: a 30-megawatt/240-megawatt-hour system being built in conjunction with a 46-megawatt solar farm, and a 7-megawatt/35-megawatt-hour solar-linked system. 
Two French energy giants won bids to develop solar-battery systems on the Big Island of Hawaii, each to consists of 60 megawatts/240 megawatt-hours of storage:  Engie North America , a large-scale renewable energy and storage developer owned by French energy and water project giant Engie, and  EDF Renewables North America , the subsidiary of French utility and nuclear power giant Électricité de France. 
Hanwha Energy USA Holdings Corp. (formerly 174 Power Global), a U.S.-based unit of South Korean multinational and solar manufacturer Hanwha, won a bid for another 60-megawatt/240-megawatt-hour solar-linked battery system on Oahu.  
Wind and solar developer Longroad Energy won bids for two projects: a 120-megawatt/480-megawatt-hour system on Oahu, and a 40-megawatt/160-megawatt-hour system on Maui. Longroad was co-founded by Paul Gaynor, the former CEO of long-time Hawaii wind project developer First Wind. 
Bright Canyon Energy, a subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corp., the owner of utility Arizona Public Service, will build a 42-megawatt/168-megawatt-hour battery system along with 42 megawatts of solar on Maui. Bright Canyon has primarily invested in wind power projects to date, including  ownership stakes  in Missouri and Minnesota projects being developed by Tenaska. 
Two other smaller-scale projects are being built by developers with deep-pocketed backers seeking opportunities in the distributed renewable and energy storage space. Onyx Development, a commercial-industrial and smaller-utility-scale renewable energy project developer  backed by Blackstone  Energy Partners, won a bid for a 6.6-megawatt/26.4-megawatt-hour project on Oahu. And Kaukonahua Solar, owned by the  SB Energy subsidiary  of Japan’s SoftBank, plans to build a 6-megawatt/25.4-megawatt-hour project on Maui. 

Several of the winning bidders had already disclosed their plans, which must still be approved by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission....

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