Osaka Gas USA Corporation (“OGUSA”), a subsidiary of Osaka Gas Co., Ltd., has entered into a joint venture with Summit Ridge Energy, LLC (“SRE”), the leading commercial solar and energy storage company in the U.S., to construct, own and operate a portfolio of over 30 MWhs of battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in New York City and more than 100 MWs of distributed solar power projects in the state of Virginia. The BESS investment marks OGUSA’s entry into the US BESS market.
In recent years, the introduction of BESS has been accelerated around the world in response to the growing need for managing congestion on the grid caused by increased penetration of renewable energy. The BESS projects are located in New York City’s Staten Island and will contribute to grid stabilization by charging from the grid when power demand is low and discharging power to the grid when it is most needed by Con Edison. The projects have qualified to participate in New York State’s Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER) program and are scheduled to be operational in June 2023.
The Community Solar (CS) projects are located in Dominion’s service territory in Virginia and have qualified to participate in Virginia’s Shared-Solar Program. The projects will provide low-cost clean energy to local residential customers through the state’s community solar program.
OGUSA has partnered with SRE in distributed solar power generation through joint ventures in Maine and Illinois since 2021. “OGUSA is pleased to expand our partnership with SRE into the community solar market in Virginia and battery storage market in New York. We will continue to contribute to the realization of a carbon-neutral society by promoting the expansion of renewable energy and battery storage. We’re eager to pursue new technologies, enter new markets and further contribute to the decarbonization and stability of the US power grid,” said Sunao Okamoto, President & CEO of OGUSA.
“We’re excited to grow our relationship with OGUSA to expand the solar industry in Virginia and bring the critical resiliency benefits of distributed battery storage to New York’s grid. Our ongoing partnership will create new jobs across the states, generate meaningful tax revenue for the local economy and allow more households and businesses to benefit from clean energy savings,” said Steve Raeder, CEO of SRE.
About Summit Ridge
Launched in 2017, Summit Ridge Energy is the nation’s leading commercial solar company. Through its strategic partnerships and project financing expertise, the company develops and acquires pre-operational projects within the rapidly growing solar energy and battery storage sectors. In the past five years, SRE has deployed over $1.6B USD into clean energy assets. With a development pipeline of more than 2 GW, SRE will have more than 400 MW of PV online by the end of 2023, providing solar power to approximately 50,000 homes.
About OGUSA
OGUSA has established its three core businesses of the LNG liquefaction and export, shale gas development, and power generation so far. OGUSA strives to contribute to achieving a low carbon/carbon neutral society by developing renewables, battery storage technology, and e-methane (the technology to produce synthetic methane from Hydrogen and CO2) as well as natural gas related business. More recently, OGUSA acquired a 350 MWdc Solar PV project in Texas from European Energy.*
About the Daigas Group
The Daigas Group aims to become carbon neutral by 2050. The Daigas Group set the following targets for 2030 as the milestones for the Group’s contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions throughout society.
1. 5GW of renewables development contribution* on a global basis
2. Nearly 50% of the Group’s power portfolio in Japan consisting of renewables
3. 10 million tons/year of CO2 emissions reduction contribution.