Eolian

An insatiable thirst for energy has grown as part of the quest to win the AI race. The answer to having more energy is to use all technologies available. Batteries have played a critical role across the country to keep the lights on and costs low. Eolian CEO Aaron Zubaty highlighted this in a recent article from the The Washington Post by Evan Halper. ? “Tech and energy companies are pushing their ambitious green-energy goals aside and rushing to build natural gas plants across the country, amid escalating demand for power and Washington’s changing political winds.” ? “It is like everyone just gave up,” said Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian. “There is this absolute panicked fear of losing the global AI arms race. Winning it is now predicated on building as many gas power plants as we can.” Read more: https://wapo.st/3QIh25n

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In Texas, batteries have become essential to stabilizing the grid by providing the fast response and flexibility required to instantly respond to record-breaking electricity demand. By allowing batteries to jump in and do what they do best when needed most, Texas sets an example for how other states can address rising energy demand while keeping the lights on and costs low. As Eolian’s COO Stephanie Smith shared with NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money: “If we're doing our jobs, nobody knows.” Learn about how these advancements are driving reliable, affordable power from Stephanie’s conversation with NPR on The Indicator from Planet Money here:?https://lnkd.in/gf_CGk95 #EnergyStorage #GridReliability #ERCOT #TexasEnergy #Innovation

Economic growth, especially through AI and data centers, is causing?national electricity demand surge.?America’s ability to win the?global tech?race depends?on?increasing?domestic production of stable, resilient, and cost-effective power.?Today, with our partner LRE, Eolian announced over?700 MWac of new co-located solar capacity in Oklahoma?to directly support Google’s Pryor data center. These new projects will begin operations in 2025 and 2026, bolstering the state’s supply?with a new?diversified?energy mix. By?providing electrons directly to the data center?on?the hottest hours, this?avoids?having to?bring power from far-flung corners of the market allowing?for data site expansion?while reducing impact to the overall electric grid during high-stress hours.? ? “The addition of more than 700 MWac of new solar resources at carefully chosen locations will enable more efficient utilization of the regional transmission network and enhance grid resilience while also directly enabling customer expansion,” said Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian. “In a time of growing electricity demand needed to power our overall economy, these co-located solar projects provide a very tangible and real solution.” The?Mayes County Solar Portfolio?and the Twelvemile Solar Projects will deliver 724 MWac of renewable capacity to Oklahoma.?These strategically-located projects address the critical need to deliver reliable energy directly at the point of consumption. Through collaboration with Google, SunChase, and LRE, Eolian is helping to ensure that the energy infrastructure supporting American AI leadership is reliable, resilient, and future-ready. “Co-locating large-scale clean generation resources adjacent to data centers isn’t a novel concept. Eolian and our development partners have been creating co-located data+energy projects like the Mayes County solar complex for nearly a decade.?This announcement showcases what’s possible when innovative electricity consumers and forward-thinking, motivated utilities work together with developers. Eolian has a multitude of additional gigawatt-scale clean and flexible co-location sites in development across the country that are designed to host new-build datacenters and large industrial load complexes adjacent.?This co-located data+energy site is the tip of the iceberg for what’s possible.?With this milestone for Mayes County solar, we look forward to unveiling our larger data+energy plan showing that gigawatt-scale AI applications with co-located, reliable and clean dispatchable power are already years into development, and can be built in diverse locations across the US for a resilient and redundant strategic national network,” added Zubaty.? https://lnkd.in/e-iFVG5a #AI #GridReliability #EnergyDemand #SolarPower #TechnologyInfrastructure?#Google #GRDA #LeewardRenewable

America’s strategic?imperative?to?expand domestic AI computing power?is?driving a?frenzied?nationwide data center?development race?and?leading to?a?prolonged period of?insatiable electricity load growth.?Battery energy storage has already been deployed at scale in competitive markets like Texas and has proven to be an essential tool to meet daily reliability and?capacity needs while simultaneously providing the fast response and flexibility required to keep?integrating larger volumes of the renewable energy needed to attain net-zero targets. ? Today’s Washington Post story shows how Omaha is an example of what is playing out across the country and how utilities can step up to provide reliable solutions like batteries, that address both load and community health for a sustainable American energy transition that can help us win the global AI race. ? “The disputes in Omaha over data centers and power demand are playing out across the United States. Rapid data center growth has also been accompanied by utility plans to?prolong the use of coal?in Georgia, Utah and Wisconsin. The Nebraska story reveals in detail how the race by giant technology companies to gain the advantage in?AI?is conflicting with climate goals and potentially harming public health. ? “If not for the data centers and poor planning by the utility, they would not need to push to keep those coal units open,” said Devi Glick, a principal at the consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics. “It is disingenuous to say that is not what is driving this.” ? Omaha emerged as prime territory because of its?bountiful, cheap electricity and seemingly endless opportunities to convert cornfields into vast solar and wind farms. ? “Given the large and growing data center footprint in Omaha, it is confounding that the local utility would intentionally impede the addition of multi-hour battery energy storage resources,” said Eolian CEO Aaron Zubaty.” ? https://lnkd.in/et9As68u ? #AI #DataCenters #EnergyStorage #RenewableEnergy #Sustainability #NetZero #BatteryStorage #CleanEnergy #EnergyTransition?#TechInnovation #ElectricityDemand #UtilitySolutions #SustainableFuture

Eolian?was featured in an article in the San Antonio Express-News by Sara DiNatale and Ricardo Delgado, which also highlights the important role that batteries play in our community. “Solar and storage saved the Texas summer,” said Stephanie Smith,?chief operating officer at Eolian, a company that has renewable generating and storage capacity in Texas. “We didn’t really have the scarcity events that we had just one year ago, and the heat index was almost as bad most of the summer.” And according to Eric Stoutenburg, our Director of Energy Storage, ERCOT systems collect control data every four seconds from batteries connected to the grid that show in real time if there are problems. Plant operators and local fire departments also have alarms tied to the sites. “There’s a whole series of automatically cascading alarms that will actually shut down any system” if problems arise, he said. Read more below. #EnergyStorage #resiliency #reliability https://lnkd.in/emjJaPBe

Eolian CEO Aaron Zubaty was featured in the The New York Times this morning in an article written by J. David Goodman. This summer, while ERCOT electricity demand on some days exceeded the extreme levels seen in 2023, the state’s electrical grid not only held strong but thrived, in a complete reversal from the scarcity conditions seen just one year ago. How??Thanks to the growing diversity of its generating resources and massive year-over-year increases in the installed capacity of battery energy storage and solar plants that were built to directly target the hours of highest risk and need on the grid, and that showed up when needed most. ? “The abject irony is that the once-freewheeling power market is now on the precipice of becoming fully government-controlled,” said Aaron Zubaty, the chief executive of Eolian, which invests in energy projects. “New technologies have provided market solutions and scaled rapidly,” he said. The result, he added, is that legacy gas-fired power generators and their political backers are trying to increase barriers for the newcomers and “push the market to go all-in on natural gas.” ?#ERCOT #EnergyStorage #orderlytransition #resiliency #reliability #flexible https://lnkd.in/g4BNHNjD

Today, Eolian entered into two new Storage Capacity Agreements (SCAs) for 350 MW/1,400 MWh with CPS Energy. When added to a previously signed 50 MW/100 MWh SCA between CPS Energy and Eolian, this marks the largest standalone battery storage buildout in ERCOT history and is the first announcement of 4+ hour duration energy storage projects in ERCOT, supporting CPS Energy’s Vision 2027 Generation Plan and playing a crucial role in enhancing grid resiliency for the San Antonio area. ? Alongside the total of 400 MW/1,500 MWh of SCAs contracted with CPS Energy, Eolian is also constructing 200 MW/1,000 MWh merchant project phase, which will result in a total of 600 MW/2,500 MWh of new battery energy storage online by early 2026 to serve critical substations in San Antonio.?The full 400 MW Padua site is being constructed using nearly 1.9 GWh of Tesla Megapacks, making this one of the largest standalone battery energy storage sites in the world.??? ?? ? The 200 MW Ferdinand project site is situated in South San Antonio adjacent to the Leon Creek power plant and will help to support local load growth and datacenter expansions. The 400 MW Padua site has begun construction next to the Calaveras Lake complex of power plants currently operated by CPS Energy, including JK Spruce and OW Sommers. Notably, this substation is at the northern end of the most congested and costly transmission path in the entire ERCOT market, and the addition of 400 MW of dispatchable capacity at this location will provide cost-saving benefits not only to CPS customers but to the entire ERCOT market by providing a multi-year ‘reliability bridge’ until new transmission lines can be constructed in the region by 2030.? ? “Following on to the 50 MW Padua 1 project already under construction for CPS Energy, this additional 350 MW of?four-hour duration battery energy storage capacity agreements and a further 200 MW of five-hour duration battery storage will provide new dispatchable capacity to the San Antonio area starting in 2025, representing the single largest buildout of standalone battery energy storage in ERCOT to date and proving that deployment of fast and flexible energy storage resources at critical grid locations can bridge the many years until new transmission can be constructed to further support load growth and alleviate systemwide congestion,” added Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian. “These project locations were carefully chosen years ago to actually reduce the burden on the transmission system and enhance overall market operations by providing resiliency and reliability within a critical load pocket and adjacent to retiring thermal generating units while simultaneously reducing congestion on key high-risk transmission pathways.” ? #ERCOT #EnergyStorage #orderlytransition #resiliency #reliability #flexible #megapack #tesla https://lnkd.in/gHDuRE4D

Last night, the Texas grid hit a new all-time record for peak energy demand, and at nearly the exact same time, WFAA aired a report on the phenomenal growth of battery energy storage across Texas, featuring Eolian’s 100 MW Chisholm Energy Storage Project that connects to a major substation in Fort Worth.?WFAA’s reporting highlighted how energy storage sites like our Chisholm location are making a major impact this summer, helping keep the lights on and consumer costs down by enabling existing gas-fired plants to participate in the energy market instead of sitting in reserve, thereby unlocking critical gas-fired capacity during the hours of most need.?The growth of battery energy storage across the grid is like planting "Seeds in the ground,” said Eolian COO Stephanie Smith.?As even larger energy storage projects enter construction in vital locations across the grid, these important resources “just need time to grow."?WFAA also highlighted a recent study by Aurora Energy Research, which showed that the availability of battery energy storage resources is pivotal in times of peak demand and saved Texans $750 million in just two days during a cold snap in January 2024. The role of battery energy storage will continue to grow, and will show that a market and grid that uses the unique attributes of all resources in concert is ultimately more secure and reliable for all. ? Check out this insightful interview!?#energystorage #reliable?#orderlytransition #ERCOT https://lnkd.in/dzD4WFCw

Great job, Team Eolian for your hard work at PBC's Habitat Restoration event! Your enthusiasm and joy made the time fly as you worked. We hope you enjoyed engaging with our naturalist about clean energy and native vs. nonnative plants! Please volunteer with us again and we encourage you to keep taking steps toward and cleaner and greener future! ?? Interested in bringing your #team to a habitat restoration or #beachcleanup? Sign up here for the next one here: https://lnkd.in/gaqyyrHH Brianna Rosales Frances Kriegh, CPA Jacob C. Heffelfinger