How the Sandrini Project Delivers Around-the-Clock Clean Power in SoCal
August 19, 2026
Solar generation is abundant during daylight hours. The harder problem has always been what happens after sunset, when demand doesn't disappear but solar output does. The Sandrini Energy Storage project in Kern County, California is a clear example of how co-located battery storage closes that gap in practice.
What Was Built and Who It Serves
EDP Renewables North America completed Sandrini Energy Storage, a 92-MW/368-MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Kern County, California. The project sits alongside the existing 300-MW Sandrini Solar energy site, making it a co-located solar-plus-storage facility.
The offtake structure is worth understanding. The Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) holds an energy storage service agreement covering 100% of the project's battery capacity and 100 MW of its solar capacity. That arrangement means a community choice aggregator is directly procuring both the storage and a portion of the solar output, using them together to serve customer load more reliably.
RCEA Executive Director Beth Burks framed it plainly: the project supports the authority's goal of building new, clean capacity that matches customer energy needs and enhances what Sandrini Solar already delivers, while also supporting grid reliability.
For corporate energy buyers and sustainability teams watching how utilities and CCAs structure clean energy procurement, this is a useful data point. Storage isn't being bolted on as an afterthought. It's contracted as a core part of the energy service from the start.
Why Co-Location Changes the Value Equation
Co-locating a BESS with an existing solar array isn't just a land-use convenience. It changes how the combined asset performs for everyone connected to it.
A standalone solar facility generates power when the sun shines and exports whatever the grid doesn't immediately need. Some of that value is lost if wholesale prices are low at midday and demand peaks later in the evening. A co-located BESS lets the operator capture that midday solar generation and dispatch it when grid demand, and typically grid prices, are higher. The result is a more predictable, dispatchable clean energy resource rather than an intermittent one.
At 92 MW of power capacity and 368 MWh of energy storage, Sandrini Energy Storage can hold roughly four hours of output at full power. That's enough to shift a meaningful portion of the solar facility's daytime generation into evening peak hours, which is precisely when California's grid has historically faced its tightest supply conditions.
For C&I organizations evaluating their own energy strategies, this model reinforces something that's becoming clearer across the industry: storage doesn't just add resilience. When sized and contracted correctly, it changes the economics of how renewable energy is delivered and valued.
Local Economic Footprint
Large-scale energy infrastructure tends to generate abstract headlines. The Sandrini project also has a concrete local story.
The project sustained approximately 50 jobs during construction and is expected to generate $5 million in local revenue, supporting community infrastructure including schools, roads, and emergency services. EDPR NA reported that it now has 1.23 GW of renewable energy capacity across wind, solar, and energy storage in California, capable of powering more than 485,000 California homes.
For corporate sustainability and ESG reporting teams, the community revenue figure matters. Procurement decisions that flow through projects with documented local economic contributions carry more weight in stakeholder reporting than simple megawatt numbers do.
What This Means for C&I Energy Planning
The Sandrini project isn't a template that every C&I organization can replicate directly. Utility-scale co-located projects involve long development timelines, interconnection queues, and offtake structures that most corporate buyers access indirectly through PPAs or CCA procurement rather than by owning the assets themselves.
But the underlying logic applies at the distributed scale too. Organizations evaluating on-site solar should be asking whether battery storage belongs in that conversation from day one, not as an optional add-on to evaluate later. The economics, incentive eligibility, and interconnection treatment of a combined solar-plus-storage system can look materially different from solar alone, and the window to optimize that structure is during initial design, not after construction.
A few questions worth putting on the table now:
- Is your facility in a region where time-of-use rates or demand charges make storage dispatch genuinely valuable?
- Does your current or planned solar project have the physical and electrical infrastructure to accommodate storage later, and would doing it now cost less?
- Are there available incentives, whether federal tax credits, state programs, or utility demand response payments, that apply specifically to storage capacity and require early project design decisions to qualify?
These aren't questions with universal answers. They depend on location, utility tariff structure, facility load profile, and project financing. But the companies getting the most out of distributed energy investments are the ones who work through these questions before they commit to a design, not after.
Start with the Right Questions
The Sandrini Energy Storage project is a well-executed example of storage doing what it's supposed to do: turning intermittent renewable generation into something that serves load when it's actually needed. At 92 MW and 368 MWh co-located with 300 MW of solar, the scale is utility-grade, but the principle scales down.
If your organization is evaluating solar, storage, or both, the right starting point is a clear-eyed look at your specific load profile, rate structure, and incentive picture. BioStar works through that analysis with C&I clients before any design decisions are made, because the choices made early have the largest impact on long-term project value.