pwr_april-2024 - 10

GLOBAL MONITOR
doubled from INR 34.9 billion ($422 million)
to INR 77 billion ($931 million) as of
May 2023. However, POWER could not
verify that figure. Still, the Prime Minister's
Office remains optimistic. " Notably,
despite the advanced technology
involved, both the capital cost and the
per unit electricity cost are comparable
to other nuclear and conventional power
plants, " it said.
Along with new milestones for the
PFBR, India has marked notable milestones
for its nuclear fleet. The country
has a 7.5-GW nuclear fleet of 18 PHWR
units and two Russian-designed VVER
pressurized water reactors (PWRs, at
Kundankulam in Tamil Nadu). Two boiling
water reactors (BWRs) at Tarapur Atomic
Power Station in Maharashtra state
and one PHWR (Unit 1 at the Madras
Atomic Power Station in Tamil Nadu) are
currently suspended.
In September, India began commercial
operation of its first domestically
designed 700-MWe PHWR at Kakrapar
3 in Gujarat. Unit 4, a twin 700-MWe
unit, achieved criticality in December
and was grid-connected in February.
State-owned Nuclear Power Corp. of
India Ltd. (NPCIL) says eight more
reactors-a combined capacity of 6.8
GW-are under construction, while another
10 reactors with a combined capacity
of 8 GW are under development.
Their progressive completion, expected
by 2032, would bring India's nuclear capacity
to 22.4 GW-tripling its current
capacity. The government also noted
it had granted approval in principle to
Westinghouse for the construction of
up to six 1,200 MW AP1000 reactors for
construction in the Srikakulam district,
Andhra Pradesh state.
-Sonal Patel is a senior associate
editor for POWER.
BESS Projects Boost Clean
Energy in Europe
Portugal has a goal to produce at least
80% of its electricity from renewable
energy resources by 2050. Several
companies are investing in the country's
power infrastructure, including
Powin, an Oregon-headquartered energy
storage platform provider that has
partnered with Galp, a leading Portuguese
integrated energy group, to install
battery energy storage systems
(BESSs). The latest project, announced
in February, is for a 5-MW/20-MWh
BESS (Figure 3) in Alcoutim, Portugal.
The installation would be Powin's
first in Europe, and coincides with the
10
3. This is a rendering of a planned battery energy storage system installation by Powin and
Galp in Alcoutim, Portugal. Courtesy: Powin
opening of the company's new office in
Madrid, Spain.
Other companies investing in energy
storage in Europe include Ardian,
a France-based investment house that
manages or advises $164 billion of assets
in a global portfolio. Ardian in February
announced, in partnership with
its operating platform eNordic, a final
investment decision to build the Mertaniemi
battery energy storage project, a
38.5-MW BESS in Finland that will support
that country's power grid. The investment
comes from the Ardian Clean
Energy Evergreen Fund (ACEEF), and is
the fund's first for a BESS project.
The projects in Finland and Portugal
will help Europe's installed energy storage
capacity grow from about 11 GWh
today to 75 GWh by 2030, according
to data from BloombergNEF. Ardian
said its project is aligned with ACEEF's
strategy in Finland, which aims to acquire
and aggregate wind and solar
power assets to benefit from economies
of scale and to better utilize the
grid interconnection points by developing
battery storage assets.
Portuguese officials have said the
Galp/Powin project is part of the country's
emphasis on developing cleaner
energy resources, including from solar,
wind, hydro, and energy storage. REN,
the country's grid operator, said renewable
power generation supplied 61%
of the country's electricity in 2023, up
from 49% in 2022. REN officials said
wind energy accounted for about 25%
of the country's power generation in
2023, followed by hydropower at 23%.
Solar power accounted for 7% of generation,
while biomass accounted for
about 6%.
www.powermag.com
" Powin's work with Galp is directly
supporting Portugal's clean energy
goals of generating 85% of its electricity
from renewables by 2030, " said Anthony
Carroll, president of Powin. " The
only way that we can support a renewable
[energy] economy is by prioritizing
storage technologies that will enable
us to get the most from our renewable
energy sources by storing that power
for use when the grid is most strained. "
Carroll told POWER, " Galp's solar
power plant near Alcoutim is located in
a very sunny village and is a perfect example
of a solar plant that is generating
excess renewable energy that we can
save via Powin's batteries and deploy
when it's needed most. This maximizes
the energy's value and fortifies the local
grid from potential disruptions. "
Alcoutim is a small village in Portugal's
southern region of the Algarve,
where Galp operates several energy
projects with a combined capacity of
144 MW across Portugal's southernmost
region. This BESS is Galp's first
move in the hybridization of its solar
power portfolio, which includes about
1.5 GW of operating generation capacity.
The BESS, as Carroll noted, will
allow Galp to store solar energy for
deployment during periods of high demand
for electricity.
" This particular project with Galp is
bigger than its MW impact ... it is the
beginning of a new partnership and is
Powin's first project in Europe following
the opening of our Madrid [Spain]
office, " said Jeff Waters, Powin's CEO.
" Europe is expected to deploy over
90 GWh of utility-scale battery energy
storage projects by 2030, and
we are well-positioned to support this
POWER | April 2024

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