Ormat Commences Commercial Operation of the 10 MW/ 40 MWh Vallecito Battery Energy Storage Facility in California

RENO, Nev., April 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ormat Technologies, Inc.¹ (NYSE: ORA) today announced the commercial operation of the 10 MW/40 MWh Vallecito Battery Energy Storage System (Vallecito BESS). The Vallecito BESS provides local resource adequacy to Southern California Edison (SCE) under a 20-year energy storage resource adequacy agreement. In addition, the facility will provide ancillary services and energy optimization through participation in merchant markets run by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).

The Vallecito BESS is Ormat’s second operating BESS facility in California with one more project under construction and multiple other projects in various stages of development.

“The Vallecito BESS facility will provide resiliency to the Goleta area and it will also help enhance the overall reliability of the grid as California transitions to 100% emissions-free renewable energy,” said William Walsh, SCE vice president of Energy Procurement & Management.

“We brought together best-in-class products, services and engineering talent to deliver a battery energy storage system that provides much needed local capacity, ancillary services and energy optimization to the region's power grid,” commented Doron Blachar, Ormat’s Chief Executive Officer. “Vallecito represents our seventh operating BESS facility in the US and underscores our strategy to develop, own and operate energy storage facilities in several key US markets, including California, New Jersey (part of the PJM Interconnect), Texas and Vermont (part of the ISO New England). Ormat is committed to be an active participant in California’s effort to achieve its goal of 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045 through massive deployment of renewable energy and energy storage resources. We are pleased to expand our decades-long relationship with SCE with this latest resource, and look forward to continuing to leverage our proven development and operations capabilities to provide load serving entities and grid operators with the expertise to enhance grid performance, stability and responsiveness – while delivering capacity where it is needed the most.”

ABOUT ORMAT TECHNOLOGIES

With over five decades of experience, Ormat Technologies, Inc. is a leading geothermal company and the only vertically integrated company engaged in geothermal and recovered energy generation (“REG”), with robust plan to accelerate long-term growth in the energy segment market to establish leading position in the U.S. energy storage market. The Company owns, operates, designs, manufactures and sells geothermal and REG power plants primarily based on the Ormat Energy Converter – a power generation unit that converts low-, medium- and high-temperature heat into electricity. The Company has engineered, manufactured and constructed power plants, which it currently owns or has installed to utilities and developers worldwide, totaling approximately 3,200 MW of gross capacity. Ormat leveraged its core capabilities in the geothermal and REG industries and its global presence to expand the Company activity into the energy storage services, solar Photovoltaic (PV) and energy storage plus Solar PV. Ormat’s current 932 MW of geothermal and Solar generating portfolio is spread globally in the U.S., Kenya, Guatemala, Indonesia, Honduras, and Guadeloupe and its 83 MW energy storage portfolio is located in the U.S.