Mercuria CSR Report 2020 - Flipbook - Page 36
Leadership and Innovation
in the Energy Transition Field
Mercuria collaborates with one of its renewable portfolio companies to create an industry-leading risk management structure solving a key challenge posed by an
industry in transition
| BACKGROUND:
tools for managing merchant power risk so they can
better match supply and demand. Broad Reach is led
The American power sector is experiencing a seismic
by a team of solar, wind, and storage experts who have
shift; it is becoming greener and more renewable by the
delivered more than four gigawatts of projects and
day. But as this energy transition unfolds, it becomes
have a combined 80 years of experience in the field.
increasingly evident that solving the reliability challenge
will be the linchpin of success for the renewable power
| MARKET OVERVIEW:
industry. Broad Reach was formed to be a leader in
this transition and to demonstrate how renewable
In recent years, Texas has become a hot spot for utility-
generation can be profitably developed without
scale energy storage. The need for battery storage
compromising the necessary reliability of the power
assets to support the supply of power to more than 25
grid. In the span of twelve months, the company has
million Texas customers – representing 90 percent of
grown to become the largest developer of standalone
the state’s electric load – has drastically increased over
battery storage in ERCOT and has established valuable
the last 12 months. Broad Reach is addressing this need:
market precedents for others to follow.
through the integration of stand-alone systems with
existing renewable facilities, Broad Reach continues to
| COUNTERPARTY:
improve the resiliency of the energy grid by providing
utilities and grid operators with more options to bring
Broad Reach Power is a utility-scale storage independent
the grid back online after an emergency.
power producer backed by a consortium of leading
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energy investors including Mercuria Energy. Based on
The 2020 Broad Reach developments were the first
decades of power industry experience, the founders
battery projects to be built without a utility procurement,
of the company saw the strengthening fundamental
RTO program, or state mandate. This paved the way for
trends of increasing solar and wind power generation,
IPPs to forge ahead with developing projects where
demand for carbon-free energy from corporate buyers,
there is a need for flexible, fast-responding generation,
and rapidly decreasing battery technology costs as
as well as providing risk management services to
creating an opportunity at scale.
both utilities and generators. Bold participants like
The company owns a three gigawatt portfolio of
Broad Reach and Mercuria are working to address the
utility-scale solar and energy storage power projects
reliability risk, leading to greater private investment in
in Montana, California, South Dakota, and Texas giving
battery technology, and consequently accelerating the
utilities, generators and customers access to new
waves of wind and solar investment.
