Avangrid – the US subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola – has begun construction on its 240MW True North solar PV plant in Falls County, Texas. The project has a power purchase agreement in place with social media and data giant Meta.
Commercial operations are expected at the plant in early 2025, Avangrid said, at which point the power will supply one of Meta’s new data centres in Temple City, Texas.
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Pedro Azagra, CEO of Avangrid, said: “With projects like True North, we continue our mission to help the country meet its ambitious energy goals, while creating quality jobs and strengthening our local economies.”
Meta has a number of PPAs in place, particularly in Texas, and has committed to powering its operations entirely with renewable energy since 2020. It has 1GW worth of offtake agreements with US developer Apex Clean Energy, and as of November 2022 had the largest corporate offtake solar portfolio in the US.
Texas has been an outlier in the US PPA market recently – the only state with a rise in PPA prices as its grid operator ERCOT saw a 14% increase in Q2. This could be attributed to some policy uncertainties brought about in Texas’ 88th state legislative session, that have caused issues for renewables development.
Avangrid’s parent company Iberdrola reported a 21% rise in net profits in Q2 2023, with 500MW of solar PV capacity added. The US is its third-largest market, after its home country of Spain and its operations in Mexico. At the end of the first half of the year, Avangrid had 592MW of operational solar PV in America.