Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), Kern County has issued a Notice of Preparation (NOP) requesting steering for the preparation of a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that can define the numerous impacts of Avantus’ Buttonbush Solar and Storage. services.
Agencies receiving discover embody the California Department of Conservation Division of Land Resource Protection and the Native American Heritage Commission (NAHC) who each submitted written feedback on the scope and content material of Kern County’s proposed environmental report.
A scoping assembly was held by the Natural Resources Department of Kern County on May fifteenth 2024 after the NOP was initially revealed on April twenty fourth 2024. All businesses have till 5pm on May twenty fourth 2024 to submit written feedback relating to the proposed environmental report.
Project particulars
Avantus’ Buttonbush facility is positioned east of Buttonwillow Raceway Park straddling Interstate Highway 5 on 132 parcels of roughly 12,875 acres of privately owned land within the valley portion of Kern County. The proposed land for the ability is presently below agricultural use and to ensure that Avantus to construct the mission, it must receive 10 Conditional Use Permits (CUPs), 13 Plan Amendments and eight Land Use Contract Cancellations from varied native businesses.
The mission is developed below Avantus’ 29SC 8me, LLC subsidiary which follows the everyday enterprise entity naming conference of the developer. Until September 2022, Avantus is named 8minute Solar Energy.
The Buttonbush mission will encompass a photo voltaic photovoltaic facility able to producing as much as 2GW of alternating present (AC) solar energy coupled with a battery vitality storage system (BESS) of as much as 2GW.
According to the NOP, the BESS is not going to exceed 55 hectares of the full mission space. Battery specs haven’t been disclosed at this early starting stage however will embody “commercially accessible lithium-ion primarily based or non-lithium ion-based storage applied sciences.”
Avantus expects to promote the vitality produced on the Buttonbush facility below a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with a utility or different third-party energy offtaker.
CAISO grid interconnection
The facility will connect with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO)-controlled grid via Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E’s) Midway or Ganso substations. Overhead and underground gen-tie line connections are thought of.
Avantus presently has two lively CAISO interconnection queue positions for the Buttonbush facility every together with photo voltaic and vitality storage capability. The first place (quantity no. 1596) was submitted again in April 2019 and contains 800MW of photo voltaic and storage capability. The second place (queue no. 1987) was submitted to the queue in April 2021 and contains 350MW capability for each applied sciences.
Queue place 1596 is being processed as a part of CAISO’s Cluster 12 examine course of and has an anticipated Commercial Operation Date (COD) of December 2026. Another queue place is being processed as a part of CAISO’s Cluster 14 examine course of and has a late March 2028 anticipated COD .
An interconnection settlement for the bigger of the 2 positions has been executed between CAISO, PG&E and Avantus whereas an settlement for the second smaller place has not but been agreed upon.
Founded in 2009, Avantus is a utility-scale photo voltaic and vitality storage developer that has traditionally targeted on the southwestern US and California electrical energy markets. California is the biggest BESS market within the US by deployments.
It was introduced in March this 12 months that international funding agency KKR agreed to amass a majority stake in Avantus. Following the closing of the acquisition, KKR will be part of current investor EIG as an fairness investor.
The firm bought one other photo voltaic and storage mission in Kern County, the 500MW/2,000MWh Bellefield mission, to utility AES in June 2023. Most large-scale BESS in California are 4-hour techniques which suggests the Buttonbrush facility could be as massive as 8,000MWh.
