NEW YORK, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Beginning this
summer, Con Edison (NYSE: ED) and SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq:
SPWR) will partner on a pilot program to offer solar power systems
with battery storage to more than 300 New York homeowners. The
aggregation of hundreds of homes with solar power and battery
storage will provide the utility with a cost-effective and
innovative "virtual power plant," providing participating
homeowners with a backup system in case of an outage while also
supplementing the traditional energy delivery model to improve grid
resiliency, reliability and sustainability.
With the integration of over 1.8 megawatts of solar power and
about 1.8 megawatts, or 4 megawatt hours, of battery storage, this
partnership will represent the largest residential distributed
energy storage program in the U.S. It results from New York's Reforming the Energy Vision (REV)
initiative, designed to harness and integrate renewables into the
state's power grid.
Under the program, qualified participants will have leased
high-efficiency SunPower® solar systems installed on their homes to
help reduce the homeowners' monthly electricity costs. For an
additional low monthly payment, participants also will have
Sunverge Energy battery systems, owned by Con Edison, installed and
connected to their SunPower systems. In the event of an outage,
solar power stored in a participant's battery storage system will
be available to power certain essential load appliances in the
home.
Using the storage system's intelligence, Con Edison will be able
to link the hundreds of solar-plus-storage systems together into a
"virtual power plant" that can act as a local generation resource
to supply power to the grid during peak usage periods. Supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA) integration will provide
remote monitoring and control, allowing Con Edison to forecast and
optimize the performance and reduce the need for the utility to
rely on traditional non-renewable power sources to meet peak
demand.
"The integrated solar and storage approach enhances value to the
grid by providing a dispatchable renewable power source that Con
Edison can control and rely on in real time," said Matthew Ketschke, Con Edison's vice president of
Distributed Resource Integration. "We are excited to offer
customers high performance SunPower systems for no upfront cost,
and a cheaper, greener, simpler alternative to a traditional backup
generator."
"This ambitious program with Con Edison represents a significant
milestone in U.S. energy delivery, demonstrating that combining
solar and energy storage can result in a stronger, more resilient
grid while providing end customers the opportunity to save on
electricity bills," said Howard
Wenger, SunPower president, business units.
"Increasingly, SunPower is working with forward-thinking utilities
to integrate advanced energy solutions and enable the transition to
a more sustainably powered world."
"Solar plus storage facilitates innovative new approaches for
utilities to serve customers, including alternative tariff
structures and virtual power plants, and Con Edison is at the
forefront of that innovation," said Sunverge Co-Founder and CEO
Ken Munson. "We're proud to partner
with Con Edison and SunPower on this very significant project,
providing intelligent storage to help ensure the delivery of
reliable renewable power to New
York residents even during power outages."
Con Edison residential homeowner customers who are interested in
participating in the program can find more information here:
http://solar.sunpower.com/asp-nystorage
About Con Edison
Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE:
ED], one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies,
with approximately $13 billion in
annual revenues and $46 billion in
assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to
more than three million customers in New
York City and Westchester County,
New York. For additional financial, operations and customer
service information, visit us on the web at www.conEd.com, for
energy efficiency rebates and incentives at
www.coned.com/energyefficiency, and on Twitter and Facebook.
About SunPower
As one of the world's most innovative and sustainable energy
companies, SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWR) provides a diverse group of
customers with complete solar solutions and services. Residential
customers, businesses, governments, schools and utilities around
the globe rely on SunPower's more than 30 years of proven
experience. From the first flip of the switch, SunPower delivers
maximum value and superb performance throughout the long life of
every solar system. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, SunPower has
dedicated, customer-focused employees in Africa, Asia,
Australia, Europe, and North and South America. For more information about how
SunPower is changing the way our world is powered,
visit www.sunpower.com.
About Sunverge
San Francisco-based Sunverge
Energy allows homeowners efficient management of their own
renewable energy generation and helps utilities, retailers and
solar power providers manage those renewable power sources and
aggregate them into Virtual Power Plants across neighborhoods,
communities and entire service areas — reliably, effectively and
intelligently. Founded in 2009, the company makes the Sunverge
Solar Integration System (SIS), a distributed energy storage and
management appliance comprised of powerful storage batteries, power
electronics, and system-management software running in the cloud.
The Sunverge SIS lowers costs, increases energy reliability,
strengthens the grid, and accelerates the adoption and integration
of distributed renewable energy. Investors include the Australian
Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), SBCVC, Siemens Venture Capital and
Total Energy Ventures International. For more information, please
visit www.sunverge.com.
SunPower's Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding expected
product performance, projected energy output, and expected cost
savings. These forward-looking statements are based on our current
assumptions, expectations and beliefs and involve substantial risks
and uncertainties that may cause results, performance or
achievement to materially differ from those expressed or implied by
these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or
contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to
regulatory changes and the availability of economic incentives
promoting use of solar energy, and fluctuations or declines in the
performance of our solar panels and other products and
solutions. A detailed discussion of these factors and other risks
that affect our business is included in filings we make with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from time to time,
including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q,
particularly under the heading "Risk Factors." Copies of these
filings are available online from the SEC or on the SEC Filings
section of our Investor Relations website at
investors.sunpower.com. All forward-looking statements in this
press release are based on information currently available to us,
and we assume no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements in light of new information or future events.
©2016 SunPower Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
SUNPOWER and the SUNPOWER logo are registered trademarks of
SunPower Corporation in the U.S. and other countries as well.
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