EVO Power’s focus on C&I

EVO Power’s energising agenda

Everyone loves a local success story, especially one involving innovation, manufacture and employment. Add smart turnkey BESS systems for commercial, industrial and utility scale projects and strong industry connections to the mix and you have a recipe to triumph. Such is the story of EVO Power, co-founded by Jamie Allen.

Jamie Allen, co-founder of EVO Power

ASK JAMIE ALLEN of EVO Power what he’s up to these days and he reels off a long list of upcoming energy storage projects involving hospitals, schools, aged care homes, distribution centres and more. The nature of customers, he says, illustrates the growing demand for storage in the C&I segment, particularly for systems sized 500kW to 2MW. EVO Power is poised not only to deliver but also exploit ever greater opportunities as the market matures.

It means developing the optimal sized solutions at the right time, and last year saw the launch of the NEO series, which is a scalable turnkey BESS from 100kW to 5MW which is suitable for councils, shopping centres and communities.

To date the largest system configured by the EVO Power team is the 4MW/10MWh (Usable AC) storage battery at the Narellan shopping centre in Sydney’s southwest, developed by CEP Energy and installed by RACV Solar.

“As far as we know this is the largest behind-the-meter battery energy storage system in Australia,” says Jamie, hence the fanfare surrounding it.

“This project is pretty unique due to its many different connection points; our product was ideal for this property as it is flexible in power and energy capacities to suit the various 500kW to 1MW connection point needs.”

This system is typical of the opportunities emerging in the market, hence EVO Power’s gravitation toward the commercial, industrial and small utility space with storage solutions sized 100kW and up.

And when it comes to pitching for projects, it helps that key staff including Olivier Fevrier and Deepak Nayak have been in the industry for decades.

“Existing relationships help immensely,” said Jamie who is constantly expanding his staff of mechanical, electrical and software engineers and anticipates doubling the team by end of year, around the time the serial innovator plans to launch EVO Power’s largest BESS, the NEOPlus AMP Series.

The future beckons, he says.

Market dynamics

“I welcome the closure of coal plants and as more big coal power stations come offline there will be greater need for significantly more renewables with battery storage of all sizes.

“Renewables play a major role. We need to produce more smart solutions and it’s making financial sense now, conversely it’s costing more to maintain coal plants than it is to produce new solar plants so we are heading in the right direction.

“I think the government and the market recognise this dynamic and the importance of storage in grid stabilisation. Trading energy from battery storage systems will become more vital over time, that is why many EVO Power systems are VPP ready.

“There are many big players – retailers, global players, developers – entering the market realising there are financial returns in this segment, and developing real business models for commercial, industrial and utility scale systems.”

Target markets

For its part EVO Power is eyeing an emerging trend: the number of 5MW solar farms that are currently being “clipped” due to negative daytime prices.

“This is a problem that we hope to alleviate with BESS systems so solar farms can charge batteries during the day and use them at night; DC Coupling is one of the solutions,” Jamie explained.

“There are a lot of distressed assets out there with developers and owners losing money, they need energy storage systems.” www.evopower.com.au