sonnen, a sensible residential vitality storage firm, and photo voltaic contractor ES Solar are increasing Rocky Mountain Power’s (RMP) Wattsmart Battery Program throughout Utah and, extra lately, into Idaho. Because it scales its enterprise improvement group and regional footprint, ES Photo voltaic is anticipated to deliver as much as 35 MWh of grid-interactive battery capability on-line in 2022 through the Wattsmart program.
Because it strikes past its proof-of-concept part, ES Photo voltaic is experiencing exponential development with over 6 MWh of month-to-month sonnen vitality storage gross sales in Utah and Idaho, attributed to the Wattsmart program. In recent times, Rocky Mountain Energy has steadily ended its photo voltaic web metering subsidy to shift focus towards changing photo voltaic alone with photo voltaic + vitality storage with the Wattsmart Battery Program, a pro-community and pro-grid enterprise mannequin which different photo voltaic contractors have struggled to adapt to. By implementing this new mannequin, ES Photo voltaic and sonnen are enabling the renewable vitality transition by serving to construct the most important community of utility dispatched sensible residential batteries within the U.S. that’s lowering the affect of vitality challenges and local weather change on society.
The Idaho Public Utilities Fee authorized the Wattsmart program in April 2022, making Idaho the second state to embrace Wattsmart. As the primary Utah contractor to deploy the brand new enterprise mannequin for smarter, extra grid interactive photo voltaic + storage adoption, ES Photo voltaic has adopted this enlargement with Wattsmart buyer enrollments in Idaho underway, supported by ES Photo voltaic’s new gross sales workplace in Idaho Falls. ES Photo voltaic hopes to broaden to extra states.
ES Photo voltaic will goal present photo voltaic house owners, each inside its buyer base and externally, to retrofit properties with Wattsmart-enrolled batteries. With the addition of a sonnenCore+ vitality storage system, particular person house PV methods will likely be reworked from sources of intermittent and erratic technology to agency dispatchable grid belongings that present worth to grid operations. The ensuing photo voltaic battery networks assist decarbonize the setting and quickly scale the blueprint for changing sure peaking energy vegetation.
Within the present Wattsmart fleet, RMP has direct management over the battery swarm and might dispatch it on demand to fulfill grid situations with each day, dynamic photo voltaic time shifting and directed load curtailment, plus frequency response and directed photo voltaic grid injection when the grid wants energy, versus when it’s sunny. The Wattsmart Program is quickly rising every month, with over 2,000 client batteries enrolled. With this fleet and Utah’s signature 600-unit Digital Energy Plant at Soleil Lofts, it’s presently believed by sonnen that Rocky Mountain Energy is immediately controlling extra residential batteries dynamically and each day, than any utility-controlled battery client program within the nation.
ES Photo voltaic is devoted to increasing the attain of sonnen’s methods and platform and has been elevated to the function of value-added distributor and Wattsmart flagship photo voltaic contractor. In present and new Wattsmart markets, ES Photo voltaic will set up reselling channels with different regional photo voltaic contractors and replicate their sensible, utility-controlled battery enterprise mannequin all through the business. Moreover, the ES Photo voltaic crew is the primary contractor to have entry to sonnen’s latest expertise, the stackable sonnenCore+ System, which ES launched in July 2022.
By championing this mannequin for promoting grid-interactive photo voltaic plus utility managed residential batteries and persevering with to embrace Rocky Mountain Energy as a strategic accomplice, sonnen and ES Photo voltaic proceed to interrupt from conventional contractor ideologies which place batteries solely as instruments for back-up energy or off-grid residing and the utility as an adversary. The ES Photo voltaic method and the Wattsmart Program show that true vitality transition requires collaboration from the grid, the utility, authorities, and the residents of a neighborhood.
“The sonnen and ES Photo voltaic groups share a imaginative and prescient of fixing our rising vitality challenges in a significant method by making a renewable electrified vitality system for society’s future that’s scalable and efficient,” says Blake Richetta, chairman and CEO at sonnen Inc. “As Rocky Mountain Energy’s battery program grows, ES Photo voltaic is succeeding in overcoming the advanced ideas and challenges related to successfully integrating residential photo voltaic + storage into the broader vitality system. As this radical mannequin expands into 1000’s of latest properties, so does the usage of batteries for the betterment of people, society and the setting, which is the last word objective of a photo voltaic battery.”
“We’re honored to broaden our relationship with sonnen by quickly growing the implementation of sensible batteries inside the Wattsmart program.” states Nic Evans, vp of strategic partnerships at ES Photo voltaic. “Our crew emphasizes the necessity for extra than simply rooftop photo voltaic to drive the clear vitality transition and we wish to do greater than lead this transition, we wish to empower different contractors to comply with in our footsteps. That is now potential with our value-added distributor mannequin and replicable gross sales and advertising and marketing technique. As we exceed our targets in Utah and broaden into new markets, we’re excited to proceed our work with sonnen and Rocky Mountain Energy.”
