Amazon’s High Desert-based solar farm with artificial Intelligence fully operational

Amazon officials recently announced that its first solar farm-plus-battery energy storage project has become fully operational in the High Desert.

Located in Baldy Mesa near Adelanto, the project is considered one of the largest DC-coupled solar plus storage facilities in California, the company in a press release on Tuesday.

Amazon harnessing solar energy

Assembled in rows across a westward stretch of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, solar panels at the Baldy Mesa solar farm are turning sunlight into carbon-free energy and sending it into the grid, Amazon officials said.

When the sun stops shining, a football field-sized battery energy storage system (BESS) near the solar panels sends electricity gathered during daylight hours back to the grid. The transitioning to solar and wind power is "one of the fastest ways to help decarbonize electricity grids, but the amount of renewable energy available can vary when the sun isn’t shining," Amazon officials stated in a press release.

The new solar farm machines that are powered by Amazon Web Services are able to predict when and how the project’s battery unit should charge and discharge energy back to the grid, the company said.

“AI is an important tool that’s already helping our society make the transition to carbon-free energy and address climate change at scale,” said Kara Hurst, Amazon’s vice president of Worldwide Sustainability.

"Amazon has enabled the development of 10 solar energy projects paired with battery energy storage systems to date–representing nearly 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of battery energy storage capacity," company officials said.

The Amazon projects include Baldy Mesa and also Bellefield near Mojave, the largest planned solar-plus-storage project in the U.S. Amazon also has its first rooftop solar array combined with a battery storage unit, which was installed at Amazon’s San Bernardino Air Hub, Amazon said.

All 10 projects are located in California and Arizona and are helping power Amazon operations, the company stated. These Amazon facilities include fulfillment centers, office buildings, and Amazon’s data centers.

Battery energy storage

At Baldy Mesa, the use of AI to optimize the battery’s performance is an emerging trend among carbon-free energy owners and operators, who are turning to machine learning to strengthen carbon-free energy production and help stabilize the grid, the company stated.

According to the International Energy Agency, the world’s fleet of wind turbines is estimated to produce more than 400 billion data points per year that AI and machine learning (ML) models can learn from to improve the operational efficiency of carbon-free energy projects, Amazon stated.

At Baldy Mesa, software leveraging machine learning is expected to analyze up to 33 billion data points each year, according to Fluence, the solutions provider. The software is designed to help extract more value from Baldy Mesa’s battery unit to help employees decide when to buy, store and sell energy based on grid conditions, company officials said.

The same machine learning solution deployed at a similar site in California was able to help anticipate last year’s state-wide heatwave and helped stabilize the grid by delivering stored solar energy when it was needed the most, Amazon officials said.

"Projects like Baldy Mesa and Bellefield are around-the-clock operations, and battery energy storage units coupled with AI/ML-enabled trading is essential to ensure we optimize and enhance the deployment of renewable energy to meet their needs," said Kleber Costa, Chief Commercial Officer at The AES Corporation.

Amazon’s Air Hub

Not far from Baldy Mesa is the Amazon’s San Bernardino Air Hub. The building is equipped with a 5.8-megawatt solar rooftop, which is paired with a 2.5 megawatt battery energy storage unit, Amazon officials said.

The Air Hub is located near San Bernardino International Airport, just north of Interstate 15.

When the sun is shining, the solar panels power the Air Hub's operations. When there's little to no light, the site can draw a portion of its power from batteries. This makes it possible for solar energy to be deployed in the middle of the night, providing the hub with carbon-free energy, the company stated.

“Battery storage projects enable increased use of renewable energy, helping ensure that the clean energy from solar and wind projects is available to the grid at all times,” said Kevin Hagen, the Clean Energy Buyers Association’s previous interim CEO. “Energy storage, smarter and more interactive load management tools and AI are among the new technologies that hold significant potential in a lower-cost transition to carbon-free energy.”

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Amazon’s High Desert-based solar farm with AI fully operational