California’s Solar Co-Location Model Could Inspire Energy Storage Strategies in Iberia, Says Arenko’s Rimshah Javed.

Solar PV and BESS technologies are at different stages of maturity, with the business model and commercial value proposition for solar being well established. However, BESS is a newer and separate technology with a different business model. Rimshah Javed, senior business development manager at energy storage and renewables optimisation services company Arenko, suggests that California could be a model for co-located solar plants. This is due to the high capacity of solar co-location sites in California, which is the largest US state market for installed solar and energy storage capacity. The Resource Adequacy Contract requires that the CAOS grid has enough capacity, in this case solar, and reserves, to maintain a balanced supply and demand across the whole state grid. Javed also suggests that a similar principle could underpin a business case for such co-locating in Iberia and Spain.