Daily Shorts: Snam plans H2 pipeline, esVolta gets $170 mn for California energy storage, and more

First Citizens Bank announced it served as the lead agent on a $170 million credit facility extended to esVolta, a company that develops, owns and operates utility-scale battery energy storage projects in North America. FCB said the credit facility would help the company complete it's esFaraday portfolio comprising 370 megawatt hours of energy storage projects in California across two operational projects and two construction projects. FCB declared that the refinancing followed through – and increased – a credit facility arranged in January 2022.

Italian company Snam has announced two multi-billion-euro energy projects, one each in the hydrogen and carbon capture space. The H2 initiative involves tying up with operators Trans Austria Gasleitung, Gas Connect Austria and others to set up a 3,300 km pipeline ferrying hydrogen from southern Italy to Germany and Austria. Snam will spend €4 billion on the project, which will utilize re-purposed infrastructure for more than 70 percent of its construction. The carbon capture initiative – dubbed CALLISTO – involves a plan to liquefy and transport CO2 from France and store it in the Adriatic Sea in a storage project Snam is setting up with Eni.

Indonesia is in talks with oil majors about a $2 billion carbon capture project as part of plans to use depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs to store CO2 emissions. The island nation's state energy company Pertamina is talking with US companies ExxonMobil and Chevron Corp, reports said. Pertamina and Exxon have agreed to conduct additional evaluations on two underground basins in the Java Sea, which have an estimated capacity to store at least 3 gigatonnes of CO2. Indonesia has 8 gigatonnes of carbon storage capacity in its depleted reservoirs, with the potential to store an additional 400 gigatonnes if it counts saline aquifers. 

US company Keysight Technologies announced the opening of a new Technology Center in Germany aimed at helping the company enhance the performance and safety of electric vehicles. In a release, Keysight said the facility would "further enable electric vehicle test solutions", allowing it to meet the growing demands of the global automotive industry. The company, which offers software-centric solutions that assist engineers in design and development areas, had earlier reported third quarter revenue of $1.38 billion, which came in flat compared with the year-ago period. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $2.57 billion as of July 31, 2023, the company declared.

Brazil's Eletrobras will offer electricity generated at its hydroelectric plants to customers looking for renewable energy to produce green hydrogen and other 'e-fuels' at a competitive cost, a company official said. Eletrobras has more than 30 hydroelectric plants throughout the country, which it will leverage for customers looking to decarbonize their operations. Last week, the power company received a renewable certification for GH2 produced at one of its pilot projects attached to a hydel plant. The company says it has also mapped out other hydropower plants that could support GH2 projects.