Fluence, Torch Team on 640-MWh Arizona Battery

• Fluence Energy inks Arizona deal with Torch Clean Energy for a 160‑MW/640‑MWh, four‑hour battery, boosting U.S. grid-scale storage to balance renewables and meet peak demand.

Fluence Energy (NASDAQ: FLNC) will supply a 160-MW/640-MWh battery energy storage system in Arizona through a partnership with independent power producer Torch Clean Energy, the companies said Wednesday. The project advances Fluence’s U.S. footprint as utilities and developers add grid-scale storage to balance intermittent renewables and peak demand.

Torch Clean Energy will own and operate the system, while Fluence is expected to provide its modular storage technology and software controls. Neither company disclosed financial terms, project location specifics, or a commissioning timeline. The installation is designed to store four hours of electricity, a common configuration for utility-scale capacity and reliability services.

What grid services and market revenues will the 4-hour Arizona BESS target?

• Resource adequacy capacity payments (4-hour qualifying capacity for APS/SRP procurements, ELCC-based)
• Peak-shaving and energy arbitrage (charge during mid-day solar surplus, discharge into late-afternoon/evening peaks)
  
• WEIM/real-time imbalance energy optimization and flexible ramping product revenues (for APS/SRP BAAs in CAISO’s WEIM)
  
• Ancillary services via bilateral utility contracts: frequency regulation, spinning and non-spinning reserves, contingency response
  
• Solar firming and shaping (smoothing output, shifting curtailment-risked MWh to higher-value hours)
• Transmission and distribution deferral and local capacity services (non-wires alternatives at constrained substations/feeders)
• Congestion management and locational value (relieving local constraints to capture nodal price spreads where applicable)
  
• Voltage support/reactive power and power factor control (if compensated under interconnection/utility programs)
• Black start and islanding support for critical loads (where contracted)
• Availability/dispatch premiums under tolling or pay-for-performance contracts with the host utility or offtaker