The North American Development Bank (NADB) has agreed to underwrite a $40 million loan to U.S. solar development company OCI Solar Power for the construction of the Alamo 4 Solar Park in Brackettville, a town in Kinney County, Texas.
CPS Energy of San Antonio, Texas, has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for the clean renewable energy that the 39.6 MW solar park will produce. OCI will design, operate and build the entire project, utilizing polycrystalline PV modules mounted on to a dual-axis tracking system.
The Alamo 4 Solar Park will be spread over 633 acres of land and will generate enough solar power to offset the effects of 52,965 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The yearly output of solar energy at the plant will be able to power 5,200 local households annually.
The NADB has financed more than $360 million in loans for 13 solar projects in the states of Arizona, California and Texas which, once all completed, will boast a combined PV capacity of close to 150 MW.
Construction of the Alamo 4 Solar Park has already begun, and it is scheduled to begin feeding power into the grid by early 2015.
Nationwide, Texas ranks seventh overall in terms of PV capacity installed (approximately 237 MW), with California way out in front with more than 2 GW installed. Although the largest state of the contiguous U.S., solar incentives in oil-rich Texas are lacking. Indeed, it is one of only seven U.S. states without any sort of net metering policy in place.
However, Texas' potential is slowly being tapped, so much so that GTM Research believe that the state can install more than 1 GW of solar PV capacity per year by 2017. Last year, just 200 MW was installed.
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