Ameresco CEO talks Colorado storage and firm California projects, United Power to issue RFP
United Power is preparing to issue a new RFP by the end of this year and celebrated with Ameresco the final installation to the new 78 MW distribution system operator (DSO) battery energy storage system (BESS).
At a powering event on July 29 in northern Colorado, Ameresco’s CEO George Sakellaris, Senior VP of solar project development Jonathan Mancini, and Senior VP of Corporate Marketing and Communications Leila Dillon, spoke with NPM about the new project and other efforts in the US.
The new four-hour DSO BESS that was the focus of the event is one of eight, all developed by Ameresco. The final installation where the event was held added 12 MW to the full DSO system, having first come online a month ago.
“We are starting to see a movement towards these types of projects, but United Power was one of the first to have the concept and we were able to execute on it,” said Mancini. “They are sort of rare, but they are now starting to move in these directions.”
He said that at Ameresco, it has over two dozen projects like this one at various stages of development throughout the US.
Sakellaris added that Ameresco “broke a record” in how quickly it was built, with the latest DSO installation having broken ground in March.
Additionally, Ameresco and United Power signed the contract for the projects on June 30, 2023. Then a year later, Mancini said that five were operating.
When it came to garnering community support, Mancini said that it took Ameresco meeting with six separate fire districts. Ameresco had its fire consultants help them understand how batteries operate, risks, and if there is a problem then how to address it.
“Very early on, we met with the fire districts to make sure they were comfortable with the project,” Mancini said.
The series of BESS projects were a result of Ameresco winning an RFP issued by United Power about two years ago. Mancini said that the process brought it down to a few different firms and Ameresco was selected based on pricing and the ability to move as fast as they could.
Dillon added that more utilities like United Power are anticipated to follow this model, and that more projects like these will “pop up all over the place.”
One of the other benefits of this type of BESS series is that each only takes up a small portion of land. The one celebrated on July 29 sits on half an acre.
On the topic of other Ameresco efforts, Sakellaris said they have built the largest BESS in the US in southern California at 525 MW. Ameresco is also building battery storage on sites co-located with natural gas plants in California on behalf of Middle River Power.
Separately, Ameresco is pursuing other technologies such as thermal projects, also in the Golden State, with Google and a larger one with the Sacramento Water and Sewer Department.
“The other unique project in California is landfill gas to green RNG,” he said, stating that there is an increase in pursuing firm projects. “No question we will see more projects like this, more renewables, and at this stage in California, an X amount of gas must be green gas or RNG.”
Sakellaris credited Ameresco as being a pioneer in that field, having started one of the first in 2010 in San Antonio, Texas similar “to what we are doing in California.”
The 30 MW Keller Canyon RNG project is expected to come online by October 2, while the thermal projects have CODs around end of 2025 or 2026.
“We are a comprehensive clean tech integrator, and our bread and butter is energy efficiency,” Sakellaris said. “The RNG, BESS and microgrids are growing. Everything is growing at the same pace and that is what I think about our company. We have distributed risk.”
United Power
Mark Gabriel, president, and CEO of United Power told NPM that this BESS series is the first in the West. The idea behind it is to stay off the transmission and avoid transmission capacity constraints while bolstering the local grid.
“It has a real advantage from our perspective to hyper-localize our system,” he said. “Each of our distribution substations has protection with the ability to charge and discharge BESS. We charge when cost is low and discharge when demand is high.”
United Power has an additional 33 MW coming online in October, though it did not specify which developer is working on the project. However, Gabriel did say that it is with a solar power producer out of Pueblo, Colorado. This new project will be six-hour batteries.
Additionally, United Power broke away from Tri-State G&T in May. Since then, Gabriel said that United Power has been buying power from the market which has been “much less expensive.”
With demand continuing to grow, Gabriel said that an RFP will be coming to help procure more resources.
Dean Hubbuck, senior VP and chief energy resource officer at United Power, told NPM that the RFP will focus on more hyper-localization with large projects like what Ameresco has done. It will also look at more technology types, such as geothermal.
“We’ve been looking at geothermal, which is a big name in Colorado, for about the last five years and are looking at that a little further,” he said. “We have to look at other standard steel technology on the distribution grid, so not large scale.” He explained that this is to help with the intermittency of solar and wind.
The new RFP is anticipated to be issued at the later part of this year, potentially in the fall timeframe.
*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.
NPM US (New Project Media) is a leading data, intelligence and events company dedicated to providing origination led coverage of the renewable energy market for the development, finance, advisory & corporate community.
Download our mobile app.