US independent power producer (IPP) Arevon has begun commercial operations at the 384MW/600MWh Eland 1 solar-plus-storage project in California.
Arevon said the project, in Kern County, brings its operational renewable energy capacity in California alone to over 3GW.
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A second phase of the project, Eland 2, is currently under construction and set to come online in Q1 2025. The two sites will have a combined 758MW of solar PV and 300MW/1.2GWh of energy storage capacity, making them one of the largest solar-plus-storage sites in the US.
Back in February, Arevon secured US$1.1 billion in tax equity and debt financing to support the construction of Eland 2. The two sites have a combined capital cost of over US$2 billion.
The recently commissioned Eland 1 site is contracted under a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Southern California Public Power Authority.
Arevon already operates the Vikings solar-plus-storage plant in Imperial County, California. This site is one of the first solar peaker plants, designed to discharge power when demand peaks. Peakers are traditionally gas-fired and often the most emissions-intensive plants in a system. Vikings was financed in part by the tax credit transferability scheme introduced under the Biden administration’s flagship Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
More broadly, the IPP has been particularly active in the state of Indiana recently. In August it inked an offtake agreement with Silicon Valley data giant Meta for the 60MW Heirloom PV project; more notably, it is currently building the 251MW Gibson solar project for which it secured US$351 million in September.
Earlier this year, PV Tech Premium sat down with Justin Johnson, COO of Arevon, to discuss the impact that transferability has had on the US solar and storage development market. He said it has “democratised” investment into solar PV, as it broadens the availability of IRA credits to smaller entities and those with different tax status.
Johnson also discussed Arevon’s decision to operate as an IPP rather than build solar projects to be sold. He said the advantages of the model (which tends to attract larger developers) exist at “every step of the value chain.”
We also discussed Arevon’s expansion into Indiana and its relationship with the emerging US solar manufacturing industry. In 2022, the company signed a 2GW module supply deal with Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) thin-film module manufacturer First Solar, which is headquartered in the US state of Ohio.
