Energy Innovations: Xcel’s Virtual Power Plant, Form Energy’s Iron-Air Battery, and More

hi I've got your energy stories for this the fifth week of August 2024 and in the first one XL Energy is the first utility in the country to file a plan with Regulators to build its own virtual power plant subsidiary Northern power in Minnesota plans to combine 440 megaw of distributed solar with 400 megawatt of battery storage duration was not mentioned located strategically on the grid so they can be operated by the utility concerted fashion one could call it a virtual power plant but there's nothing virtual about it Exel calls it a quote distributed capacity resource in its filing it's a real power plant just distributed assets XEL estimates it will take 9 to 12 months to set up the program and 36 months for deployments one area of disagreement is ownership XL Energy wants to own the whole thing and of course various Solutions providers would rather they be the entities putting this together iron a battery manufacturer form energy has received a $147 million US Department of energy grant for an 85 megawatt 8500 Mega hour iron a energy storage facility at a closed paper mill site in northern Maine a key value proposition is the ability to ease the congestion issues affecting the ability of the grid up there to integrate wind energy longer duration assets can be particularly useful for wind whose output may vary greatly for from one day to the next the anticipated commissioning date is 2028 Theo ocean energy management and Maine have agreed on a location for the nation's first floating offshore wind lease stretching over 15 square miles and located 28 nautical miles offshore the lease could host up to 12 machines at 12 megaw each and will help the state of Maine and Industry participants to assess the viability of floating wind as well as environmental impacts and supply chain issues any construction activity won't begin for at least several years as the Bureau of ocean Energy Management must approve activities as well as an environmental assessment also an offshore wind gnova just can't seem to catch a break with yet another offshore turbine blade suffering damage this one at the UK's massive dogger Bank project this is the second such incident at dogger Bank another blade failed in May the cause remains under investigation it's not clear that it was manufacturing related issue at least not yet but if it turns out to be so that's very bad news for the company as they may have to investigate all the installed blades out there Service Solutions opened its $400 million battery recycling plant expansion in Ohio the first large energy facility to come online after receiving support from the bipartisan infrastructure law with grants totaling $82 million the plant can produce annually about 15,000 tons of so-called black m Mass that's the substance containing lithium nickel Cobalt and manganese that can be then separated and integrated into new batteries an additional expansion is planned for 2026 which ultimately would enable the Ohio plant to support production of up to 250,000 EVS a year speaking of EVS Ford continues to backpedal on its EV plans in the face of huge losses noting recently that it will no longer manufacture a planned three row electric s UV and go the hybrid route instead it also said it wouldn't launch any new EVS unless it can see a path to profitability in the first year plan changes could add another $1.9 billion to Ford's total costs and finally BMW outpunched Tesla in Europe for the first time in July selling 14,869 EVS to Tesla's 14561 the model Y is still the single most popular EV in the continent but Tesla's offerings are seen by some as becoming stale time for some new offerings if musk can take his eyes off SpaceX Ai and robots for at least a few seconds well that's all for this week thanks for watching and we'll see you again next week