Spanish energy company Acciona Energía has commissioned its 458WM Red-Tailed Hawk PV project in the US state of Texas, the company’s largest solar project by capacity.
Acciona Energía acquired the project from a consortium including Avondale Solar and Solar Plus Development in February 2022, in a deal valued at US$460 million. The project has been built in Wharton County, and includes tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules produced by Indian manufacturer Waaree.
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Acciona Energía also noted that the project includes single-axis solar trackers, although the company did not specify which brand of trackers it will use. The company plans to expand its renewable portfolio further, having invested US$320 million into its Union solar farm in Ohio, which will have an operating capacity of 325MW when it begins commercial operations this year.
Waaree will also provide panels for the company’s Fort Bend and High Point solar projects, in the states of Texas and Illinois, respectively, as part of the company’s 2.7GW operating portfolio in North America.
Texas remains one of the leaders in the US solar sector, with a number of new projects realised in recent months. Last year, US lawyer Winston P Skinner said that the Texas regulatory environment helped encourage such investments, telling PV Tech Premium that “there’s not a whole lot in the way of permitting for solar projects in particular.”
The commissioning of projects such as these will help to realise the International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) forecasts of renewables being responsible for 80% of new capacity additions by the end of the decade. The IEA also expects the world to add 500GW of new capacity in 2030, an encouraging figure, although one that reflects less than half of the 1.2TW module nameplate manufacturing capacity the IEA forecasts to be in operation.
