French oil major TotalEnergies and German-owned renewables developer RWE have announced plans for five large-scale batteries in the US state.
From ESS News
handful of large-scale battery storage project announcements are set to bring 1.35 GWh of energy storage capacity online in Texas by the end of 2025.
French energy company TotalEnergies has already commissioned a 225 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) alongside 720 MWp of solar generation capacity at its Danish Fields project in the state.
The company’s Cottonwood solar-plus-storage project, also near the Gulf Coast, has had 455 MWp of solar commissioned and is set to feature another 225 MWh BESS during 2025, with both batteries supplied by TotalEnergies subsidiary Saft.
The move by the French oil and gas major, in part to decarbonize operations at its Gulf Coast facilities, coincided with an announcement by RWE Clean Energy LLC to develop 900 MWh of BESS across three other Texan projects.
RWE, part of Germany’s RWE Group, has broken ground on three 150 MW/300 MWh BESS which are due into service during 2025 to reinforce the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) grid.
The Crowned Heron 1 project, in Fort Bend County is due to be operational in summer 2025, as is the Cartwheel site in Sulphur Springs. The Crowned Heron 2 BESS, also in Fort Bend, is expected online during summer 2025.
RWE said it already operates the 300 MW solar and 100 MW/200 MWh battery Bright Arrow solar-plus-storage site in Sulphur Springs, has 700 MW of batteries operational, and is constructing 1.4 GW as part of a drive to have 6 GW worldwide by 2030.
TotalEnergies said 70% of the electricity made available from its Danish Fields and Cottonwood sites is backed by corporate power-purchase agreements signed by clients including French building materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain and US chemical company LyondellBasell. The remaining 30% of output will help decarbonize operations at sites in Port Arthur, where TotalEnergies has a refinery; at La Porte, where the company has a polypropylene plant; and at Carville, in Louisiana, where TotalEnergies operates the world’s biggest styrene and polystyrene facility.
“The commissioning of Danish Fields and Cottonwood in the fast-growing Ercot market illustrates our ability to provide competitive renewable electricity to support our customers’ decarbonization goals as well as our own,” said Olivier Jouny, TotalEnergies’ renewables director.