$1.2 Billion Gemini Solar+Storage Project To Use 100% CATL Batteries

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

The giant 690 MWac/966 MWdc Gemini solar power project planned for Las Vegas, Nevada, will include 1,416 MWh of energy storage capacity. This will be one of the largest solar+storage projects in the United States, or the world for that matter.

Primergy Solar LLC is developing the $1.2 billion project. “Primergy designed an innovative DC coupled system for the Gemini project, which will maximize efficiency from the teaming of the solar array with the CATL storage system,” CATL writes. “CATL will supply Primergy Solar with EnerOne, a modular outdoor liquid cooling battery energy storage system that features long service life, high integration, and high degree of safety. With a cycle life of up to 10,000 cycles, the LFP-based battery product will contribute to the safe and reliable operation of the Gemini project. Primergy selected the EnerOne solution for Gemini because it utilizes advanced lithium phosphate chemistry which meets Primergy’s requirements for safe and reliable operations at its sites.”

As reported recently, CATL has become the biggest EV battery manufacturer in the world — by far. It had 34% of the global EV battery market in the first half of the year, whereas #2 LG Energy Solution had 14% market share.

The company recently broke ground on a new Luoyang battery production base, “Zhongzhou Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited.” The project could cost up to 14 billion yuan ($1.94 billion) in total. “CATL and Luoyang government will jointly promote the building of the new energy ecosystem, actively introduce upstream and downstream enterprises, develop clean power generation projects, promote battery swapping services, and continuously raise the proportion of electric applications. The two parties will make every effort to build a new energy industry cluster with competitive advantages nationwide in Luoyang, and jointly develop Luoyang into a regional pacesetter in the new energy industry,” CATL states.

Factory image courtesy of CATL.

A final bit of news regarding CATL, one of its factories was recently selected by the World Economic Forum as a factory to feature. Its Sichuan Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL-SC) facility was added to the World Economic Forum’s Global Lighthouse Network. It’s the second battery factory included in this network — and the first is CATL’s, too.

Battery production GIF image courtesy of CATL.

“To catch up with significant business growth, and higher quality and sustainability expectation, CATL builds up a large greenfield in Yibin city. The plant further deployed in depth AI, IoT and flexible automation on top of CATL Ningde headquarters lighthouse digital initiatives, and has achieved 17% increased line speed, 14% reduced yield loss, and zero carbon emission,” the World Economic Forum writes.

Battery production GIF image courtesy of CATL.

The point of the Global Lighthouse Network is to highlight factories that are leading in terms of cutting-edge technologies and efficiency solutions that help to cut emissions. This is what’s going on at the newly selected CATL factory:

Green Energy Management. CATL has developed an energy management system that collects data from over 40,000 sensors deployed in the plant through Narrow Band-IoT & 5G wireless solutions. Supported by an advanced algorithm, the system has calculated each equipment’s operating parameters with optimized energy consumption of the system.

Intelligent production management. By developing a closed-loop coating process control algorithm, CATL-SC is able to model and deeply learn the combined parameters of more than 1,000 powders and fluids, achieving precise control of foil coating in micron and milligram levels, thus greatly improving the consistency of products.

“Also, based on virtual and simulation development, pack lines of CATL-SC have achieved 80% automatic. Supported by automatic gluing process, the manpower of the gluing process line is reduced by 70%, achieving 99.8% qualified rate.

Extreme quality management. With the application of high-precision visual inspection equipment and AI technology, CATL-SC has achieved recognition accuracy to micron level, which stimulated breakthroughs of defect detection in process of welding, winding and previous process under high-speed fluid condition.

Highly precise safety management. Safety management is crucial to CATL-SC, which is currently one of the largest EV battery production bases in the world. By combining video streaming and AI technology, it has reduced the risk of missed inspection. Through video streaming, the system can automatically identify operation mistakes such as mixed placement of signs and channel occupation, and is able to label and save images automatically. Supported by infrared thermal and AI technology, it has centralized temperature monitoring of battery cells in warehouses and temperature monitoring of battery cells in key high-temperature processes.”

Sounds like fun.

 

Featured image courtesy of Primergy


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan