SunEdison Buys SolarGrid, Becomes First To Offer Renewable Energy And Storage Solutions

In a forward-looking business decision to produce more cost-effective energy storage technology, largest renewable energy developer SunEdison has acquired energy storage firm SolarGrid. Initially a solar power generator, SunEdison can now sell energy storage services to utilities in US and Europe.

This move comes on the back of a recent successful purchase of First Wind, and makes it the first large US solar manufacturing company to offer battery storage solutions together with its solar and wind projects.

The 4 year old SolarGrid Storage LLC was in the business of integrating solar installations with lithium-ion battery systems. Incorporating energy storage will prove to have substantial immediate economic benefits for SunEdison, as new policies have been introduced in the US that mandates grid operators to pay more for services to make the grid run more reliably. For example, California passed a law in 2013 that requires the 3 big utilities to buy 1325 mW of energy storage service by 2020.

General Manger of SunEdison Tim Derrick has called this a “perfect complement”, to increase the value of their projects by “improving their availability and abilitiy to interact with the grid”. The company hopes to produce renewable energy projects of 2300 mW capacity this year.

If SunEdison is able to drive prices of energy storage down in the long term, the distributed solar markets could open up in a huge way.

If you want to know more about this and other topics directly from end users of energy storage technologies join us at one of these annual events: The Energy Storage World Forum (Grid Scale Applications), or The Residential Energy Storage Forum, or one of our Training Courses.

LATEST ARTICLES

Product Development: Embracing product safety and compliance

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: EMBRACING PRODUCT SAFETY AND COMPLIANCE Recent safety incidents on storage plants have raised concerns about the fire safety of battery storage systems. Such events are extremely rare compared to the cumulated global deployments of energy storage systems, which have reached more than 27 GWh by end of 2020 (Wood Mackenzie 2021). However, for…

Read More

Battery Storage for Commercial & Industry

Powerful battery storage offers many advantages in terms of saving electricity costs and a reliable power supply. With this technology, companies retain control of their energy supply and costs. The battery storage system is charged when energy is cheaply available and it supplies the stored electricity when prices are at their highest. With applications such…

Read More

★REVIEWS

“Probably the most interactive and well organized storage event on the calendar.”

★★★★★

Sales Director, S&C

“Great topics, competent speakers, good networking: keep it like that.”

★★★★★

TLC & SCADA Manager, FRI-EL

“High scientific content, well targeted, perfect organization.”

★★★★★

Expert Technical & Governance, Elia

Excellent networking event. The sponsorship was well worth it.”

★★★★★

Manager, ATL

View More

x