First Tesla, Now Shell: Advanced Microgrid Solutions Teams with Big Players

June 22, 2015
Just a few weeks after announcing a deal with Tesla, Advanced Microgrid Solutions has also signed a 20-MW battery agreement with Shell Energy.

Just a few weeks after announcing a deal with Tesla, Advanced Microgrid Solutions has also signed a 20-MW battery agreement with Shell Energy.

The young California upstart, a women-led venture, will install battery storage for Shell’s commercial, industrial and utility customer’s in California.

The two deals indicate that AMS is on to something with its move to create ‘hybrid electric buildings.’ The company installs software intelligence and energy storage, which when aggregated, creates a kind of virtual power plant, which offers demand reduction to the grid or local utility.

AMS and Shell Energy plan to identify new and existing direct access and utility customers who want to install the advanced battery systems.

“We are thrilled to be working with Shell Energy on a new fleet of hybrid-electric buildings in California,” said Katherine Ryzhaya, AMS chief commercial officer. “This collaboration will allow Shell Energy customers to save money while contributing to grid modernization and resiliency.”

AMS will design, finance, build and operate the projects. Shell Energy will have dispatch rights on capacity for use in planning and market operations, the companies said in a news release.

In its deal with Tesla, AMS will install up to 500 MWh of Tesla batteries in its energy storage projects.

The company also was among nine firms selected in November by Southern California Edison in a solicitation that netted 2, 221 MW in long-term capacity contracts, more than 500 MW of that from ‘preferred resources’ – energy storage, demand response, energy efficiency and renewables. SCE awarded AMS a power purchase agreement to develop 50 MW of storage in what AMS is calling one of the world’s first grid-scale fleets of ‘hybrid-electric building

AMS says its first 10-MW hybrid-electric building project will be installed in Irvine, California in 2016.

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About the Author

Elisa Wood | Editor-in-Chief

Elisa Wood is an award-winning writer and editor who specializes in the energy industry. She is chief editor and co-founder of Microgrid Knowledge and serves as co-host of the publication’s popular conference series. She also co-founded RealEnergyWriters.com, where she continues to lead a team of energy writers who produce content for energy companies and advocacy organizations.

She has been writing about energy for more than two decades and is published widely. Her work can be found in prominent energy business journals as well as mainstream publications. She has been quoted by NPR, the Wall Street Journal and other notable media outlets.

“For an especially readable voice in the industry, the most consistent interpreter across these years has been the energy journalist Elisa Wood, whose Microgrid Knowledge (and conference) has aggregated more stories better than any other feed of its time,” wrote Malcolm McCullough, in the book, Downtime on the Microgrid, published by MIT Press in 2020.

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