Customer Story: Co-locating Solar and Storage

‍Learnings From Operating a BESS for the First Time

An interview with Laura Perez Amigo, Operations Manager at InterEnergy

Read on to find out:

• How Laura got to oversee the largest BESS in the Central American and Caribbean region
• The challenges her team is facing when operating batteries
• How she uses analytics software in her work

Laura, how did you end up with InterEnergy?  

I’m an engineer, specializing in renewable energies. Since the start of my professional career, I’ve worked on PV and energy installation projects. I got to know InterEnergy during my work as an independent engineer when I was working as a consultant on a PV project. In September 2019, I joined the InterEnergy team as a solar analyst.

InterEnergy is a leading energy company in Latin America and the Caribbean, with 2.4 GW of total installed capacity, including 490 MW of renewables. We’re growing our renewable portfolio, and right now, our biggest focus is CEPM 0, an ambitious project to decarbonize the CEPM grid in the Dominican Republic. 

As Operations Manager, I oversee all our renewable projects in operation, including battery energy storage systems (BESS). I ensure everything runs smoothly, with BESS and PV systems working together efficiently to support the grid and drive sustainability. 

Last year, we commissioned our first BESS project in the Dominican Republic. The BESS is co-located with a PV plant. With over 40 MWh, it’s the largest BESS in the Central American and Caribbean region.

When it comes to BESS operation, what specific challenges are you facing?

There are two main challenges: Firstly, my company has a background in operating motor generators. Operating batteries is very different. A generator is switched on and off. It’s a fixed generation. But batteries and solar are not linear. At first, we were not operating the system in an optimal way. We are still learning how to discharge and charge the BESS optimally.  

Secondly, we still need to understand better how the batteries are going to perform. It’s still new to us. Before having an analytics tool, we had limited insight into battery degradation and performance trends, and we faced some challenges aligning O&M teams due to lack of detailed data. 

With TWAICE, we now have a tool for analytics. TWAICE helps us better understand how the batteries are working and performing.

Why did you start looking for a battery analytics solution?  

We started looking for an analytics solution because the SCADA tool that we used did not have the capacity to show BESS data in a friendly way. We couldn’t properly analyze the BESS performance. We got signals from our batteries but no processed data, no KPIs. Inefficiencies and delays in troubleshooting also increased our operational costs. Also, we couldn’t easily forecast and plan for system upgrades or replacements.

Can you describe how you use analytics software in your work?  

With battery analytics, we detect anomalies in real-time. It helps us cut down on downtime. We also use data insights to monitor battery health and understand degradation trends over time. This helps us comply with warranty requirements.

And there’s a big emphasis on improving collaboration between our O&M and operations teams to keep everything running smoothly.

With TWAICE, it’s like being able to see into the battery data. TWAICE has helped us uncover many underperforming components that we wouldn’t have found otherwise. Other tools are not able to show us the same level of detail that we need to understand how the batteries are performing.

How do you feel your role and InterEnergy’s operations management will change as you transition from a few installations to a fleet of BESS?

The main goal is that we operate as a whole. We should not treat wind, PV and batteries as individual projects; they all work together. We need to learn how to operate them together as one unified project to optimize energy output and costs.

How do you see the industry evolving? What trends are you excited about? 

Last year, we talked a lot about hydrogen, pumped hydro, and other storage technologies. But seeing the prices of batteries, the focus will be on BESS. We see reductions in battery prices of more than 50% compared to the beginning of the year. It doesn’t make sense to go into other kinds of storage right now. A lot of governments are also starting to require storage in renewable energy projects. Including BESS in these projects is the easiest and cheapest way to comply.

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About InterEnergy

Powering the Caribbean and Latin America since 1988

For more than thirty years, InterEnergy has powered people and cities across the Caribbean and Latin America. It has 2.4 GW of installed, available and in development capacity, providing reliable, cost-effective and clean energy to the Dominican Republic, Panama, Jamaica, Chile and Uruguay.