POWER FACTORS IMPLEMENTS SCADA AND EMS ON TWO OF THE LARGEST UTILITY-SCALE SOLAR-PLUS-STORAGE PLANTS IN TEXAS

Power Factors recently completed the commissioning of the power plant controller (PPC), energy management system (EMS), and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems for two utility-scale solar plants in Texas. Owned by a global oil and gas supermajor, these projects are among the largest utility-scale solar-plus-storage projects in the United States to date. 

With a combined DC capacity of more than 1,100 MW, these plants consist of 258 solar central inverters and over 2 million solar panels. This massive infrastructure is expected to generate enough clean electricity to power over 200,000 homes and offset 1,455,000 metric tons of CO2 annually. 

The projects also include over 220 advanced battery energy storage system (BESS) containers with a total capacity of 450 MWh, addressing crucial grid stabilization requirements. 

With the commissioning of these plants, Power Factors’ PPC, EMS, and SCADA now support several GWs of utility-scale solar and BESS sites in Texas, all following the applicable North American Electric Reliability Corporation Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) standards.  

Power Factors’ SCADA provides the means for effective management of the assets throughout their lifecycle, while the PPC guarantees smooth integration with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the local grid through its efficient frequency response (FR) and automatic voltage regulation (AVR) functions. 

Our EMS also dynamically coordinates with the BESS control system to balance the solar plants’ active and reactive power, offering energy shifting, state of charge (SOC) management/balancing, frequency/voltage support, and ramp rate control at both the subfield and overall site levels, among other functionalities, improving system reliability and operational flexibility. 

To learn more about Power Factors’ EMS, PPC, and SCADA systems, get in touch!