Energy Solutions
Utilities need dispatchable, dependable capacity at specific points on their grid system, and they need it sooner than new thermal units can be permitted and built. Cloudbreak originates utility-scale battery storage and carries each project through interconnection, permitting, and financing to deliver a construction-ready or completed asset to the party best positioned to own it.
01
A battery does not generate electricity; it shifts it in time. Solar output peaks at midday, while demand peaks in the early morning and again after sunset. A four-hour system absorbs generation that would otherwise be curtailed and discharges it into those peaks, displacing the marginal thermal unit. Dispatchable within seconds and sited at a constrained point on the grid, it delivers firm capacity where the system is short and can defer transmission and substation upgrades.
Surplus stored from all generation assets
Energy discharged during peak demand
Power flows in from generation during the day, and back out to the grid when demand peaks.
A day on the grid. Solar peaks at midday; demand peaks in the morning and again after dark.
Through the middle of the day, solar and wind run ahead of what the grid is using and gas plants are at their cheapest to run. Rather than let that surplus go to waste, the battery takes it in.
The energy sits on site, at a point on the grid the utility picked because that is where the capacity is needed.
It discharges when demand spikes: the morning ramp as people wake up, and the long evening peak after the sun has gone. About four hours at a time.
02
| System size | 20 to 100 MWac, four hour duration, front-of-meter lithium-ion systems. |
|---|---|
| Interconnection | Transmission and high-voltage distribution, sited against a specific capacity need or constraint. |
| Land position | Long-term site leases signed directly with landowners, secured before a queue position is filed. |
| Scope | Origination, land, permitting, interconnection, offtake or capacity contract, financing, EPC procurement and construction management. |
| Delivery | Build-transfer to a utility or sale at notice to proceed. |
03
The Pueblo Battery Resource is a 50 MW battery storage facility at Black Hills Energy’s Pueblo Airport Generating Station in Pueblo, Colorado. Cloudbreak is developing and constructing the project under a build-transfer agreement, with Black Hills Colorado Electric taking ownership at completion. Linxon is delivering the balance-of-plant infrastructure supporting 50 Tesla Megapack batteries, and NORD/LB closed $60 million in construction financing. It is the first project of its kind in Black Hills territory, and the clearest expression of how we work: we carry the development risk, the utility gets the asset.
04
Batteries
Grid-scale Megapack systems from a supplier with a proven utility-scale fleet, domestic manufacturing, and a service organisation that will still be there in year twenty.
High-voltage EPC
Substation and high-voltage balance-of-plant specialists. On a storage project the substation is where schedules slip, so we contract that scope to a firm that does nothing else.
Capital
Storage is capital-intensive and its tax equity market is young. NORD/LB closed $60 million in construction financing for the Pueblo Battery Resource, and Cloudbreak works with a standing group of debt and equity partners across construction and term financing, including structured equity and transferable tax credits.
05
For utilities
We develop and construct the facility and hand over a completed, energized asset. The utility owns it without carrying early-stage development risk or spending scarce internal development capacity to get there.
For load-serving entities
Cloudbreak retains ownership and sells capacity and energy under a long-term contract. You hold the dispatch rights; we carry the asset, the financing and the operating obligation.
For developers and IPPs
We bring land control, interconnection position and permitting in the markets we know well, and partner with owners who bring balance sheet and long-term operating capability.
06
Storage projects rarely die on the economics. They die in the queue, in the county, or on a piece of land the developer never actually controlled. Cloudbreak was built as a land and interconnection business first, which is why our storage projects continue to move forward successfully.
We sign leases before we apply for permits or interconnection. We prioritize permitting in counties where we have already had projects approved, so we know the planning commissions. We engage with planners early in the development process and perform comprehensive zoning code research to ensure we implement all permitting requirements into our original project plans.
07
Cloudbreak develops both. On a site plan they look like the same asset. They are two different businesses.
20 to 100 MWac, four hour duration, front-of-meter.
1 to 10 MWac, sited feeder by feeder.
Transmission or high-voltage distribution, at a point the utility picked.
Distribution voltage, downstream of the substation, close to the load.
Regional capacity a utility needs sooner than new thermal generation can be permitted and built.
A local constraint: a congested feeder, a substation out of headroom, a pocket of the system that needs capacity held through the evening.
Large parcels under long-term lease, secured before a queue position is filed.
Parcels of less than an acre, near three-phase distribution, leased before a queue position is filed.
Build-transfer to a utility, or sale at notice to proceed.
Cloudbreak typically retains it as a long-term owner and operator.
Pueblo Battery Resource: 50 MW, built and transferred to Black Hills Colorado Electric.
81.1 MWac across 22 sites in Colorado, Washington and Maryland.
Whether you are a utility with a capacity need, an IPP looking for shovel-ready storage, or a landowner with a site near a substation, we would like to hear from you.
Cloudbreak has over 66.3 MWdc of sites under active development in major East Coast markets such as Virginia, New York, and others. These projects span large distributed projects with utilities such as Dominion as well as community solar projects in National Grid and NYSEG service territories.
Cloudbreak Energy has been awarded 8 MWdc of distributed solar projects in Iowa. Cloudbreak is actively developing more than 23 MWdc of distributed and community solar projects in several Midwest markets and across multiple utility territories, such as WE Energies, WPS, and Xcel.
Cloudbreak Energy has 70+ MWdc of distributed solar and solar plus storage projects in active development in various counties across the Pacific Northwest and in California. The West Coast is a large focus area for the firm as community and distributed solar legislation gains momentum in some of those key markets.
Cloudbreak has been awarded 70+MWdc of distributed and community solar projects with Xcel, Black Hills, and Mountain Parks Electric which are in various stages of maturity, ranging from permitting to COD. Cloudbreak also has 180 MWdc of utility scale solar and 212.2 MWdc of distributed and community solar projects under active development.
