From pv magazine USA
Terra-Gen and Mortenson have announced the activation of the Edwards & Sanborn Solar + Energy Storage project, the largest solar-plus-storage project in the United States. Mortenson served as engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for the project.
The project is a true renewable energy behemoth, spanning 4,600 acres, comprised of 1.9 million First Solar panels. It holds a capacity of 875 MWdc solar, and nearly 3.3 GWh of energy storage. It has a 1.3 GW interconnection capacity.
California’s grid is expected to receive enough electricity to power the equivalent of about 238,000 homes from the project. This leads to an estimated 320,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions abated annually.
The energy storage is made up of LG Chem, Samsung, and BYD batteries. This feat of engineering required 98 miles of MV Wire, over 361 miles of DC wiring, and 120,720 batteries.
Edwards & Sanborn is partially located on the Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County, California, a hub for many of the largest solar projects in the United Staes. It represents the largest public-private collaboration in US Department of Defense history. Since 2020, more than 1,000 craftworkers contributed to the project, and it was executed with more than a million hours of injury-free labor.
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“Only in America can we take barren land, embrace the power of the sun, and create an engineering marvel,” said Brigadier General William Kale, Air Force civil engineer center commander. “So, take the time to reflect, see the great work that was done, and understand the significance of this project and what it can lead to. Hopefully, this is just the spark.”
The active project supplies power to the city of San Jose, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, the Clean Power Alliance, and Starbucks corporation, among others.
The project’s first phase added 346 MWac of solar modules and 1.5 GWh of battery storage. Financing for the the first phase was closed in 2021 and included $804 million senior secured credit facilities. This includes $400 million construction and term loan facility, a $328 million tax equity bridge facility, and a $76 million construction and revolving letter of credit facility. J.P. Morgan is providing the tax equity commitment for the initial phase of the project, with Deutsche Bank leading the construction and term financing.
In 2022, Terra-Gen closed a nearly $1 billion project financing for the second phase of the project. It included $460 million construction and term loan facility, $96 million construction and revolving credit facility, and a $403 million tax equity bridge facility. BNP Paribas, CoBank, U.S. Bank, ING, and Nomura led the funding.
In total, the two financing rounds for the project totaled more than $1.7 billion.
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Another hidden subsidy: what is the value of the free land? Solar is still a long way from paying its own way. Meanwhile, China’s new coal fired power plants helped worldwide coal burn hit a new high record.
Ask the ranchers the value
Wonderful. great to hear some positive news
I am curious what the levelized cost per megawatt-hour of the project will be.
And since the project will provide storage – how well does it compete with natural gas-fired peaker plants? Do any readers or the author know any such details?
Once a panel is bought and installed there is practically no maintenance other than cleaning for 25 years. The other parts are simple. So I don’t get the high costs that are talking about.
238,000 homes for how many hours?
Mike,
These were exactly the same thoughts I had: can it compete with natural gas, both over the short term and long term? that would be a good thing if so.
I’m glad to see the US doing something positive for our planet! But I do have one question. What’s the temperature increase in that area? You know dark colors will cause more heat !
But what was the cabon footprint of mining, manufacturing, transporting and installing all of those materials? And how long are they expected to last and what is to be done with them afterwards? Why is this not part of the overall equation and stated here? Frankly. I find it hard to believe that it will cover the already huge carbon footprint just to get it to this point. So if not then what’s the point?
Why not experiment, I’m old school, how shall this world survive 🤔
And that’s 7 Square miles of Prime Real Estate, although they called it barron land!
This plant needs a bank of adjacent SMRs to be of value to the US Grid…otherwise Solar remains a nice idea for the Politicians. Yes it & wind do have a place in small applications. GT
Total utility-scale electric generation for California was 287,220 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2022.
8,760 hours per year.
We use 786 GWh every day.
That’s 31GWh every hour.
This 3GWh of storage is literally 1/10 of one hour.
That’s six minutes of energy storage for billions of dollars.
Suddenly unimpressive in context.
It takes on average 2 years to offset manufacturing and transportation climate emissions. With 25-40 year life, that’s a huge positive payoff.
Battery is great peak power off set power.
There is a lot of the empty “prime real estate” in the California desert.
238,000 homes for the life of the project. The area of the homes is 100 times the area used by the project.
You are incorrect. I keep hearing that 2 year payout claim. Problem is, that came from a paper around 20 years ago, and the 2 year claim was for PV solar silicon alone. The calculation did not include things like the aluminum frames, plastic encapsulant, Tedlar backing film, interconnection wiring, power inverters, local transmission lines, and spinning reserve backup power from gas, coal, or nuclear sources. When added up, you get 30 years for the payout, longer than the panels will last.