Blog

Nov 11, 2024

EDF signs 20-year PPA for 250MW BESS project in Arizona

EDF Renewables North America has signed a 20-year utility power purchase agreement (PPA) with Arizona Public Service (APS) for a 250MW/1,000MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Arizona.

EDF Renewables North America has signed a 20-year utility power purchase agreement (PPA) with Arizona Public Service (APS) for a 250MW/1,000MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) project in Arizona.

The North American arm of French state-owned power company EDF hopes to begin construction on the project, Beehive Battery Energy Storage System, next year, and expects it to enter commercial operations by 2026.

The system will charge with energy from the grid when energy production is abundant, and discharge when demand peaks.

The agreement is among many long-term contracts for capacity or services from third-party BESS facilities signed in Arizona, which saw the second-highest deployments among US states in megawatt-hour terms in the second quarter of 2024, as per research firm Wood Mackenzie.

APS has signed another 20-year storage PPA with Canadian Solar’s developer subsidiary Recurrent Energy for the 600MWh Desert Bloom Storage BESS project together with a solar deal and building on a 1.2GWh storage agreement signed last year.

While EDF Renewables North America has delivered large-scale solar-plus-storage projects, the Beehive BESS is its second multi-megawatt standalone storage project in the US.

EDF is also an important major player in the British BESS market, where it is developing a 2GW pipeline of projects besides trading and optimising third-party projects as a route-to-market provider.