Enlight Pushes $3 Billion Arizona Solar-Storage Flagship

• Enlight’s $3B Arizona solar-plus-storage hybrid pairs bifacial PV and grid-forming batteries to hit evening peaks, stabilize the grid, streamline interconnection, unlock tax credits, and create jobs.

Enlight is advancing a roughly $3 billion Arizona hybrid, pairing a multi-hundred-megawatt solar farm with a 2- to 4-hour battery, moving through final pre-construction steps. Bifacial PV on single-axis trackers with WECC-compliant controls and grid-forming batteries aim to shift daytime output to evening peaks and deliver fast frequency response and stability services.

Co-location behind one interconnection streamlines permitting and cuts losses, with an EMS optimizing state of charge across day-ahead and real-time markets. Financing will blend long-dated offtake, hedges and limited merchant exposure, underpinned by federal tax credits and insurer wraps. The project promises hundreds of jobs, a durable tax base and environmental safeguards.

How will Enlight’s Arizona solar-plus-storage project optimize grid services and economics?

• Stack revenues via co-optimized dispatch: daytime solar to day-ahead energy sales, evening battery discharge into peak LMPs, and continuous bids for regulation, spinning reserve, and flexible ramping where available (e.g., EIM products used by Arizona utilities).
  
• Use grid-forming controls to deliver fast frequency response, synthetic inertia, and voltage support, improving system stability and enhancing capacity accreditation and ancillary service pricing.
  
• Capture clipped solar and midday curtailment by oversizing DC relative to AC and storing excess for higher-value evening delivery, boosting round-the-clock effective load carrying capability.
  
• Dynamic SOC targeting with probabilistic forecasts (solar, load, prices, and congestion) to set charge floors/ceilings that protect evening capacity obligations while preserving headroom for real-time ancillary bids.
  
• Optimize nodal economics by co-locating behind one interconnection to reduce congestion exposure and basis risk, and by providing reactive power and dynamic VARs to maintain voltage and avoid penalties.
  
• Offer black-start and controlled islanding support to local feeders or critical loads, creating resiliency contracts and premium grid services with utilities.
  
• Participate in utility resource adequacy programs, monetizing ELCC-based capacity payments through firm evening deliverability backed by performance guarantees.
  
• Minimize losses with high-IRR single-axis tracking, bifacial gain management (albedo optimization, backtracking), and HVAC/aux load scheduling to lift net output during scarcity intervals.
  
• Implement degradation-aware dispatch and augmentation planning so high-value evening cycles are prioritized while keeping battery health within warranty limits, preserving long-term capacity revenue.
  
• Hedge price and weather risk with a blend of tolling PPAs, proxy-generation or as-generated offtake, revenue puts, and selective merchant exposure; layer insurer wraps for availability and curtailment risk.
  
• Monetize federal incentives via ITC (or PTC if elected), transferability, and pursuit of domestic-content adders where feasible to lower levelized cost and sharpen bids into capacity and ancillary markets.
  
• Reduce curtailment risk via contractual curtailment bands and operational coordination with the balancing authority; leverage congestion forecasting to time charging during low-loss, low-price intervals.
  
• Provide inverter-based oscillation damping and ride-through per latest WECC/NERC/IEEE requirements, improving interconnection study outcomes and permitting higher export limits.
  
• Use an EMS that arbitrages between day-ahead and real-time markets, automatically switching between energy shifting and ancillary services when scarcity prices or ramping shortages emerge.
  
• Apply seasonal strategies: longer duration discharge during summer peaks, reserve SOC in monsoon-driven volatility for frequency products, and maintenance during shoulder months to maximize annual gross margin.