Enel announces three major renewable energy projects in Texas, including its largest solar farm in the United States
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Enel Green Power on Wednesday announced plans to build its largest solar farm in North America just southeast of Waco, another solar project in Grimes County, northwest of Houston, and a wind project near from Abilene.
The Italian renewable energy company predicts that the three projects would have the combined capacity to generate nearly 1,200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 240,000 homes in Texas on a hot summer day. The new projects would bring Enel’s generation capacity in Texas to around 2,000 megawatts, enough to power around 400,000 homes in Texas.
Georgios Papadimitriou, director of Enel Green Power in the United States and Canada, said the projects reflected the company’s focus on Texas, which is the country’s largest wind power producer and is home to a solar sector in rapid growth. Enel, one of the world’s largest renewable energy companies, made its first U.S. investments in the Midwest about 15 years ago, but has been targeting Texas since 2018.
“Texas has been, and we believe it will certainly remain, one of the most business-friendly states,†Papadimitriou said. “It is one of the states where we can develop new power plants very quickly, and a state where the energy markets are open to receiving investments like the ones we currently have underway.”
Part of the allure of Texas, he said, is the relative ease of enable energy projects. This helps businesses get projects online faster than anywhere else in the United States.
The largest of the new projects, a solar farm in Falls County, near Waco, is expected to produce around 639 megawatts once it goes live in fall 2022, and an adjacent utility-scale storage facility will be able to store 59 megawatts. Enel officials predict that the Waco project, called Roseland, will create 350 temporary construction jobs and 18 permanent jobs, and generate more than $ 52 million in landowner rents and $ 59 million in local tax revenue on a 35-year lifespan.
Closer to Houston, the company will build a solar farm capable of generating 270 megawatts and supporting 59 megawatt battery storage in Grimes County. It will create around 450 construction jobs and eight permanent jobs.
Enel expects the plant to start operating at the end of this year.
Its third project, in Callahan and Eastland counties, is expected to generate 263 megawatts from wind turbines with a storage capacity of 87 megawatts thanks to its battery system.
Papadimitriou declined to disclose how much his company is investing in the projects. It typically costs around $ 1 billion to bring 1,000 megawatts of clean energy online.
Enel said he plans to build battery storage facilities in his new and existing projects in Texas. Papadimitriou said falling battery costs and the ability to store energy when prices are low and sell it when prices are high have made investing easy.
In addition to the projects in Texas, Enel Green Power announced the construction of a 200 megawatt wind farm in Illinois and a 140 megawatt wind farm in Oklahoma.
shelby.webb@chron.com
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