Navigating the Complex Landscape of Energy Storage Permitting

Nextpower (Nasdaq: NXT, formerly Nextracker) and Abunayyan Holding announced the completion of the incorporation of the previously announced joint venture, Nextpower Arabia, headquartered in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The new joint venture will accelerate the deployment of utility-scale solar power plants across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, supporting national and regional renewable energy transformation objectives and Net Zero targets.

As part of the new joint venture, the partners also announced a new advanced manufacturing facility in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Nextpower Arabia will provide advanced tracker systems, yield management, and control solutions for installation on large-scale solar projects across the MENA region.

The facility is expected to enable total manufacturing and localized supply chain capacity of up to 12 GW per year, supporting the creation of up to 2,000 jobs and development of local engineering and technical talent within the Kingdom. Currently under construction on a 42,000-square-meter site, the production facility is anticipated to open in Q2 of calendar year 2026 and will manufacture Nextpower’s comprehensive portfolio of solar tracking systems, adding up to 600 employees (watch the video).

Khalid Abunayyan, Chairman of Abunayyan Holding, said, “Making energy and water supply readily accessible, sustainable, and affordable is essential to the continued economic and social development of Saudi Arabia and our partners across the region. It is also central to the core values and DNA of Abunayyan Holding. Partnering with Nextpower, a true pioneer in the international solar energy community, strengthens our role in advancing Saudi’s clean energy vision by localizing advanced manufacturing and technologies, building local capacity development, and creating lasting value for generations to come.”

Dan Shugar, founder and CEO of Nextpower, said, “Saudi Arabia is a strategic market for Nextpower as we expand our ability to serve customers across the Middle East. The Kingdom is making significant progress in advancing the energy transition, and we’re proud and honored to support these monumental initiatives with proven solar technology and trusted local partnerships. Abunayyan Group’s regional expertise and alignment with our business focus make them the right partner to help deliver greater value, faster, for customers in the region.”

Turki Al-Amri, Abunayyan Holding CEO and Nextpower Arabia Chairman and CEO, said, “Our manufacturing facility represents the first step in our strategic vision to strengthen and localize the solar supply chain for our partners across the MENA region and enhance collaboration to deliver highly efficient and cost-effective clean energy. By sourcing core materials such as Saudi-produced steel through our strategic partners and manufacturing locally, we are supporting economic diversification and industrial growth that is at the foundation of Saudi Vision 2030.”

Nextpower Arabia combines the deep regional expertise of Riyadh-based Abunayyan Holding with the global solar technology leadership of Nextpower. Abunayyan Holding brings more than 75 years of experience developing and privatizing the operation of critical water and energy infrastructure across Saudi and the MENA region. The company was a key driver of the consortium behind the founding and growth of several development arms and forming joint ventures that bring leading technology to the region.

U.S.-headquartered Nextpower is a global leader in advanced solar tracking systems and software, with over 150 GW of trackers under fulfilment or operational across more than 45 countries worldwide. This total includes more than 6 GW of solar projects across the Middle East and Africa, such as Phase V of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in the UAE and 3 GW of Saudi landmark projects, including:

• 405 MWp of the Sakaka Solar Park, the Kingdom’s first utility-scale solar project
• 1,170 MWp Al Kahfah project
• 449 MWp Tabarjal project
• 450 MWp of the Sudair project

Nextpower Arabia is well positioned to support the National Renewable Energy Program in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which targets increasing the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix by 2030. Localizing manufacturing in the Kingdom will also support Saudi Arabia’s industrialization and export development plans while helping reduce the cost of clean energy for major projects across the region.

According to the Middle East Solar Industry Association’s (MESIA) recent 2025 Solar Outlook Report, cost competitiveness and improving production efficiencies are accelerating solar adoption and government-backed clean energy strategies, with regional solar capacity projected to exceed 180 GW by 2030.

In support of this growth opportunity, Abunayyan Holding and Nextpower anticipate funding the joint venture with approximately $88 million (approximately 330 million Saudi Riyals) in equity and public and private debt financings over the next two years alone. This capital will facilitate the buildout of the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and development of highly skilled technical and engineering capabilities with a track record in operational excellence.

Nextpower Arabia | https://nextpower.com/nextpower-arabia

LF Energy, the open source foundation accelerating the energy transition, announced that its Battery Data Alliance (BDA) project has released the Battery Data Format (BDF), an open, community-driven standard designed to bring order, interoperability, and transparency to the rapidly growing world of battery data. BDF defines a consistent structure for experimental, simulation, and metadata-rich battery datasets making it easier for researchers, industry, and software developers to collaborate and build next-generation tools.

Battery data today is fragmented across institutions, vendors, and platforms. BDF provides a unified schema and ontology-driven approach that enables datasets to be shared, analyzed, and reproduced reliably across the battery ecosystem.

Built on Collaborative Global Research

The development of BDF builds on extensive contributions from leading institutions across academia, industry, and government:

• BattINFO Ontology — BDF is aligned with the terminology and structure defined by the BattINFO Ontology from the Battery2030+ and BIG-MAP projects, ensuring consistent definitions, machine-readable metadata, and compatibility with broader FAIR linked-data practices.
• Faraday Institution’s PyProBE and BDX — Python Processing for Battery Experiments (PyProBE https://github.com/ImperialCollegeLondon/PyProBE) is an open source Python package designed to simplify and accelerate the process of analysing data from battery cyclers. It was created at Imperial College London within the Faraday Institution’s ( https://www.faraday.ac.uk/) Multi-scale Modelling project and has been instrumental in validating BDF’s column naming conventions and metadata definitions. Faraday Institution is funding the modification of PyProBE to adopt BDF-aligned naming, enabling interoperability between BDF and BDX (Battery Data eXchange), the optimised, binary format used by PyProBE to provide file size and processing performance benefits. 
• Microsoft Open Battery Dataset Contribution — Microsoft plans to release a new battery dataset in the BDF format, providing the community with a high-quality reference dataset for benchmarking, tooling development, and educational use.
• Ohm BDF Converter Contribution — Ohm (YC W23) to contribute the Battery Data Format (BDF) converter to the community. This web-based tool enables users to upload raw cycler data files and download a BDF-compliant .csv, streamlining adoption of the BDF standard across laboratories and workflows. Ohm’s converter supports major commercial cycler data formats, is freely available, and is designed to accelerate interoperability and reduce friction in transitioning to BDF-aligned data practices. Ohm is a pioneering leader in PhD-level, industrial AI agents purpose-built for battery science.
• Largest Open Source Battery Data Contribution in the BDF (August 2025) — Collaboration between Empa, ETH Zurich, EPFL, SINTEF produced dataset from 199 coin cell batteries—featuring both NMC//graphite and LFP//graphite chemistries, each tested for 1,000 cycles under fully automated, precisely controlled workflows in BDF

These collaborations reinforce BDF as a standard shaped by real-world data workflows, from experimental cycling and materials characterization to physics-based models such as PyBaMM and BattMo.

Designed for Practical Use Across the Battery Lifecycle

The BDF provides a standard structure for data generated in battery labs. It is expected that adoption of the BDF will empower the battery science community to leverage advances in open source battery models.

Developed with input from leading scientists and engineers, the BDF addresses two main challenges:

• Data Consistency: With a common format, labs and cycler brands can eliminate the inconsistencies in data structure that arise with each software update.
• Model Compatibility: A unified format means battery model developers can easily adapt their models to accept BDF data, making it possible for scientists to experiment with multiple models without custom coding each time.

The format is defined as open, extensible, and implementation-agnostic, enabling future growth as new chemistries, devices, and data types emerge.

Early software support includes:

• BDF Python Library, for reading/writing datasets and validating metadata
• Conversion tools for transforming vendor-specific formats (e.g., Arbin, MACCOR) into BDF
• Reference visualization tools (web and notebook-based) for quick exploration of BDF datasets
• Conversion to/from BDX to access all PyProBE tools
• Compatibility with leading modeling frameworks (PyBaMM, BattMo) and analysis platforms

Initial Scope of the BDF

• The initial scope is intended to facilitate use and comparison of cycler time-series data.
• The BDF provides a fixed table schema for time-series battery data, which is supplemented with a machine-readable application ontology for integration with the Semantic Web.
• The BDF application ontology is defined as an extension of the BattINFO domain ontology, which provides interoperability within the broader field of battery data.
• An immediate next step will be launching a parallel format for storing metadata for the BDF.
• Future development will focus on formats for other types of lab data such as impedance data.

A Shared Foundation for the Battery Data Community

The Battery Data Alliance aims to make BDF a globally adopted standard and invites companies, universities, labs, and software developers to participate.

“BDF provides a common language for battery data—designed in the open and strengthened by contributions from across the global community. We encourage organizations of all sizes to participate and help advance a unified standard for the battery industry.” – Gabe Hege, Chairperson for the Battery Data Alliance

A public specification, documentation, examples, and reference datasets are available at:
https://batterydataalliance.enexrgy

Organizations interested in participating in the BDF working group or contributing datasets are invited to contact:
[email protected] 

LF Energy | https://www.lfenergy.org

The Linux Foundation | linuxfoundation.org

Accredant Capital is pleased to announce it has advised Segue Sustainable Infrastructure ("Segue") on the sale of a development-complete community solar portfolio in Illinois to Radial Power. The projects, developed by Carson Power, a development partner of Segue, are positioned to deliver clean energy to communities across Illinois.

The transaction reflects the continued strength of the community solar market and demonstrates Segue's successful strategy of capitalizing and de-risking development-stage renewable energy projects to create value for its partners.

Accredant Capital served as Segue's exclusive sell-side financial advisor, running the process that resulted in the partnership with Radial and providing advisory, structuring, due diligence, and negotiation support throughout the transaction process.

NextPower Capital Rebrands to Accredant Capital

Effective January 1, 2026, NextPower Capital officially became Accredant Capital. The rebrand reflects the firm's continued growth and its commitment to delivering accretive solutions for clients. The team, leadership, and service offerings remain unchanged.

Accredant Capital continues to operate as a specialized clean energy investment bank focused on capital raises, M&A advisory, and strategic consulting services across North America. The firm's senior investment bankers leverage extensive industry expertise and proprietary technology to serve renewable energy developers and investors across utility-scale, community solar, commercial, and residential projects.

Segue Sustainable Infrastructure | segueinfra.com

Accredant Capital | accredant.com

GenH2 Corp, a Path2 Hydrogen Company (FRA:PTHH.DE) and leader in liquid hydrogen infrastructure solutions, announced it will collaborate with the Future Energy Exports Cooperative Research Centre (FEnEx CRC) to develop a Mixed Refrigerant (MR) cryogenic refrigeration system for deployment at its Kwinana Energy Transformation Hub (KETH) R&D facility, with delivery targeted by the end of 2026.

The Mixed Refrigerant system will utilize a helium–neon refrigerant blend, enabling the examination of performance and behavior of mixed refrigerants deployed in a cryogenic cooling cycle relevant to hydrogen liquefaction. The system will support validation of thermodynamic models and process simulations developed by researchers within the FenEx CRC and determine the accuracy of predicted mixed refrigerant behavior under cryogenic operating conditions.

GenH2 will engineer the system to support a broad range of experimental scenarios, in various pressure and flow rate conditions, enabling the research team to conduct a wide variety of tests. The system will be skid-mounted, providing a compact footprint, efficient use of available space, and flexibility for transport, installation, and future reconfiguration within the R&D facility.

“This project represents another important milestone in our collaboration with FEnEx CRC to advance the efficiency of hydrogen liquefaction,” said Greg Gosnell, CEO of GenH2. “We are proud to apply our cryogenic expertise in support of research that will generate critical insights into mixed refrigerant performance and help enable scalable, cost-effective hydrogen infrastructure.”

The project builds upon the collaboration announced in November 2024, in which FEnEx CRC and GenH2 agreed to engineer and demonstrate a high-efficiency hydrogen liquefier with production capacity of up to 100 kg/day. The earlier initiative leverages GenH2’s proprietary reverse Brayton-cycle hydrogen liquefaction technology.

“This initiative is part of a project co-funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) that aims to demonstrate technologies and know-how that can lower the cost of hydrogen liquefaction. We will use this mixed refrigerant refrigeration system to further validate the process simulations and thermodynamic models that have been developed by researchers within the CRC,” said Eric May, CEO of FEnEx CRC. “By examining mixed refrigerant behavior under hydrogen-relevant cryogenic conditions, we will be better positioned to design improved, high-efficiency liquefaction cycles that can be scaled to much larger capacities.”

Together, the liquefier demonstration and the Mixed Refrigerant cryogenic refrigeration system form a complementary research platform at KETH, enabling deeper investigation of mixed refrigerant cooling cycles and supporting the development of more efficient and scalable hydrogen liquefaction technologies.

Delivery of the Mixed Refrigerant system in late 2026 will further strengthen the Kwinana Energy Transformation Hub’s role as a leading center for clean energy research and hydrogen export technology development.

FEnEx CRC | https://www.fenex.org.au

GenH2 | https://genh2.com/

Comstock Inc. (NYSE: LODE) (“Comstock” and the “Company”) and Comstock Metals LLC (“Comstock Metals”), a leader in the responsible recycling of end-of-life solar panels with the only certified, North American, zero-landfill solution, announced that it has received its Written Determination Permit from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection – Bureau of Sustainable Materials Management (NDEP-BSMM), for the processing of waste solar panels and photovoltaics for its industry-scale materials recovery facility located in Silver Springs, NV. This timely and final required approval results in a fully permitted operation and facility and keeps our scale up plans for commissioning this industry-first, large scale processing facility in Silver Springs, NV, right on schedule.

On January 5, 2026, Comstock Metals received a similar notification of approval for the associated Air Quality control permit. These last two permits, represent the complete scope of required regulatory approvals for commissioning the scale up of a facility designed for processing more than 3 million panels per year from one, continuous production line, representing up to 100,000 tons per year of waste materials being processed. This facility integrates technologies for efficiently crushing, conditioning, extracting, and recycling metal concentrates from photovoltaics. The Company previously ordered all of the equipment and received deliveries during Q4 2025 and remains on schedule for receiving the rest of the equipment, installing, testing, and commissioning this first of its kind industry-scale facility during the first quarter of 2026.

“We appreciate BSMM’s collaborative engagement in issuing the first industry-scale Written Determination permit for solar panel recycling, a key regulatory milestone that enables Nevada’s only zero-landfill, high-volume, end-of-life solar panel recycling solution serving the broader region,” said Dr. Fortunato Villamagna, President of Comstock Metals. “This authorization aligns with our original permitting timeline and reflects the effectiveness of our regulatory strategy, the strength of our relationships with regulators, and the successful execution of a complex, first-of-its-kind permitting process.”

Many of the U.S. solar panels have been deployed in the southwestern U.S., primarily California, Arizona, and Nevada, with decommissioning of these solar panels occurring now, accelerating supply and increasing the demand for environmentally responsible end-of-life solutions. Comstock has positioned itself to ensure the safe deconstruction and productive reuse of these important materials. Establishing our platform in Nevada establishes the leading solar recycling position over more than half the U.S. market for end-of-life panels and establishes a platform for rapid expansion across the rest of the United States.

“Comstock Metals is setting the global standard in solar panel recycling by creating a scalable, reliable, efficient, and optimized network of decommissioning, collecting, aggregating, storing and full-recovery processing (and ultimately refining) nodes designed and built for speed and scale,” said Corrado De Gasperis, Executive Chairman and CEO of Comstock. “Most of the industry is still getting their heads around the magnitude of inevitable end of life panel dilemma, measured in the billions of panels, while we deploy and deliver a full end of life solution.”

Comstock I www.comstock.inc

GameChange Solar (GCS), a leading global supplier of single axis solar trackers announced the release of an updated version of its white paper "Reliable Hail Mitigation: Technical and Economic Optimization for Solar Trackers". The white paper provides a comprehensive overview of hail mitigation, including discussions on appropriate triggers for hail stow, hail stow tilt angles, wind coincident with hail, and a case study identifying the lowest LCOE based on different hail mitigation approaches.

The updated edition incorporates the results of a new study by CPP Wind Engineering Consultants regarding wind direction during hail events. The CPP study, which is summarized in the memo "Wind directionality during hail events" analyzes the wind direction within +/- 30 minutes of 137 hail events at a site in East Texas, USA and 48 hail events at a separate site in Queensland, Australia. CPP calculated that the vast majority of storms with hail, 75% or more, produce winds from both east as well as west sectors. The study concluded: "The storm direction of travel or the wind direction at ground level prior to the onset of hail are not reliable predictors of the hail direction as conditions change rapidly."

Based on this analysis, GameChange recommends that owners purchase trackers that are designed for wind loads acting on both the front face and rear side of the module. Furthermore, owners and insurers cannot assume that the modules are always facing away from the wind during a hail event, even for trackers that are able to stow to either the east or west on a storm-by-storm basis.

"We have a concern that some tracker OEMs in the industry are encouraging solar asset owners to put too much emphasis on the direction a tracker stows during a hail event," explains Scott Van Pelt, Chief Engineer at GameChange. "Our understanding, based on conversations with CPP and multiple insurers, is that it is far more important that the tracker be rotated to a steep tilt angle of at least 60 degrees and that the system be regularly tested to ensure the trackers reliably rotate to stow when there is a chance of hail in the forecast."

The white paper is available upon request from GameChange's website and was discussed at the Solar Insights event hosted by GameChange Solar in New York City last month.

GameChange Solar | www.gamechangesolar.com

Pacifico Energy Vietnam (“PEV”), the Vietnam-based development platform of Pacifico Energy Group (“PEG”), a leading global energy infrastructure developer, announced the commencement of commercial operations at its 30 MW Sunpro Wind Farm (“Sunpro”), adding new power capacity to Vietnam’s national grid, supporting the country’s transition to clean energy. Located in Thới Thuận Commune, Vĩnh Long Province in the Mekong Delta, Sunpro achieved commercial operations on December 19, 2025. PEG owns 100% of Sunpro, which is backed by a 20-year feed-in tariff with Vietnam Electricity Group (“EVN”), providing stable, long-term revenue.

“Sunpro’s commissioning represents a major milestone for Pacifico,” said Nate Franklin, Chairman of Pacifico Energy Group. “It underscores our long-term commitment to Vietnam’s energy security and sustainable growth, delivered through responsible project development, strict regulatory compliance, and close coordination with central and provincial authorities.”

Sunpro is PEG’s second operating power project in Vietnam, following the 40 MW Mũi Né Solar Power Plant. With Sunpro now operational, PEG continues to advance its 1GW energy development pipeline in partnership with local communities and stakeholders, supporting Vietnam’s long-term economic development and energy transition. Sunpro adds meaningful new generation capacity to Vietnam's regional power infrastructure, supplying power to 27,000 households.

“The achievement of commercial operations at Sunpro reflects disciplined execution and close coordination with government partners,” said Phạm Quốc Anh, Chief Executive Officer of Pacifico Energy Vietnam. “The project is now operating as planned and contributing reliably to Vietnam’s national grid.”

The project was financed with VND 750 billion ($28.5 million) in senior debt from Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Industry and Trade (VietinBank), one of Vietnam's four state-owned banks and the second-largest by total assets. VietinBank provided senior debt financing for engineering, procurement, and construction activities and the refinancing of existing shareholder loans.

Project Highlights:

• Gross Capacity: 30 MW
• Technology: Wind
• Wind Turbine Generator: Goldwind GW155-4.5MW
• Annual Generation: 89 GWh
• Total Investment: VND 1,600 billion

Pacifico Energy | www.pacificoenergy.com