Pine Gate Renewables going big on new battery technology for solar, storage projects

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Pine Gate Renewables announced two significant supply deals with emerging battery technologies this week – one for 4,550 MWh of Urban Electric Power’s zinc alkaline batteries and another for 2,400 MWh of EnerVenue’s nickel-hydrogen battery energy storage systems.

Pine Gate already has over 1 GW of operating solar assets in the country with over 16 GW in active development, including hybrid, standalone solar, and standalone energy storage projects across the country.

Zinc alkaline. The Memorandum of Understanding supply agreement with Urban Electric Power covers the next five years and is to be used in solar-coupled and standalone energy storage projects across the country. This agreement allows Pine Gate access to Urban Electric Power batteries each year, under preferential terms.

“We’re excited to partner with Urban Electric Power to bring zinc alkaline batteries, a familiar household item, and apply it towards grid-connected utility scale applications for our customers across the United States,” said Raafe Khan, Director of Energy Storage at Pine Gate Renewables. “We are committed to supporting our partners and customers with safe, domestically manufactured, scalable, reliable, and durable solutions that they can connect with for their storage needs. This is just the start of an exciting journey ahead for both organizations and we look forward to working with the Urban Electric Power team in building a sustainable energy storage ecosystem so that our customers can live their lives uninterrupted.”

Urban Electric Power’s patented technology tweaks the chemistry of the familiar household AA battery to make it rechargeable. This enables safer, more affordable energy storage solutions, which the New York-based company offers under the Ohm label to homes and commercial and industrial customers, and to utility-scale infrastructure projects branded as Zeus. The batteries are assembled at its factory in Pearl River, New York, creating U.S. manufacturing jobs in a fast-growing industry.

The zinc alkaline cells avoid several issues of other battery chemistries including lithium, most notably thermal runaway. Supply outlook for zinc is also less volatile than it is for lithium.

The Urban Electric Power products are certified to UL standards as not subject to thermal runaway, meaning they are fire-safe for indoor installations in cities. They contain no cobalt, whose mining in Africa carries human rights concerns; nor lead. The technology has already been tested and proven for large-scale uses such as in the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and at commercial-industrial locations to offer backup power and dispatchable energy storage to the power grid.

Enervenue

Metal-hydrogen. Under the terms of the agreement with Enervenue, Pine Gate Renewables will deploy its systems to support its growing pipeline of projects over the next four years, leveraging EnerVenue’s uniquely robust, safe, cost-efficient energy storage technology capable of delivering multiple power cycles each day.

EnerVenue’s differentiated battery technology has continued to drive rapid company growth since its founding in 2020. EnerVenue raised $125 million in Series A funding, now has 140 employees, and continues to accelerate hiring of engineering talent.

“EnerVenue batteries offer a differentiated value proposition – lower degradation across a wide temperature band, and lower cost for maintenance and augmentation, whilst posing no fire or thermal runaway risk. These batteries also have a stackable form factor and can last for more than 30-years while being able to cycle multiple times a day,” said Raafe Khan, Director of Energy Storage at Pine Gate Renewables. “We are proud to partner with EnerVenue in bringing this technology to our customers, further bolstering our unwavering commitment to strengthen the domestic supply chain and build a sustainable energy storage ecosystem in the United States.”

Here is more on the Enervenue technology from an episode of The Pitch:



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