Fluence wins 800 MWh Rexford 2 storage contract in California
Fluence Energy has agreed to supply its Smartstack battery energy storage system and turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction services to Avantus for the Rexford 2 project in Tulare County, California. The system will carry a 200 MW / 800 MWh capacity using a four-hour discharge duration, and will be paired with a solar facility on the same site.
Construction is scheduled to begin in 2027, with commercial operation targeted for late 2028. Once live, the project is expected to supply firm, dispatchable capacity to the California grid, with Fluence saying it would be sufficient to serve approximately 84,000 homes.
The deal
A notable feature of the contract is its domestic-content structure. Fluence will draw on its US manufacturing network, with battery cells, modules, enclosures, and thermal management components produced at partner facilities in Utah, South Carolina, and Texas. That supply-chain configuration is likely designed to qualify the project for domestic-content bonus credits under the Inflation Reduction Act's investment tax credit provisions, which offer enhanced incentives when a specified proportion of manufactured components originates in the United States.
John Zahurancik, Chief Customer Success Officer at Fluence, said the company was combining its end-to-end EPC capability with the US-built Smartstack platform to streamline deployment for Avantus. Tony Frontino, Executive Vice President of Strategic Sourcing and Asset Management at Avantus, said the project would "strengthen the grid, build domestic supply chains, and bring much-needed energy capacity to California."
The project is said to support more than 500 union jobs at peak construction, alongside permanent local operations roles, and is projected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in local tax revenue for Tulare County. It will be built on previously disturbed land, the companies said, to limit environmental impact.
Market context
The large-scale battery storage market in California has expanded sharply as CAISO, the state's grid operator, works to address reliability gaps created by the evening peak demand period that follows solar generation. Grid-scale storage capacity contracted in California has grown significantly over the past three years, driven by a combination of state procurement mandates, declining lithium-ion costs, and IRA incentive structures.
Fluence, listed on NASDAQ as FLNC, competes in the utility-scale storage segment against Tesla Energy, BYD, and a number of South Korean and Japanese battery integrators, as well as smaller software-forward platforms. The Smartstack product line is positioned as a high-density, modular system designed for fast deployment, and the addition of turnkey EPC services reduces project-development risk for offtakers such as Avantus.
The domestic-content angle carries commercial and policy significance beyond this single deal. US trade policy and potential further tariff adjustments on imported battery components have made supply-chain localisation a competitive differentiator; vendors with established US manufacturing partnerships are better placed to offer IRA-compliant projects to developers and utilities seeking to maximise tax credit monetisation.
Fluence stated it has contracted, deployed, or has under management gigawatts of projects across close to 50 markets. The Rexford 2 award adds to a California portfolio that positions the company in one of the world's most active storage procurement markets ahead of the state's 2035 clean-electricity deadline.