US power plant operator Clenera has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with utility Arizona Public Service (APS) for its Snowflake A solar-plus-storage project in the state.
The project is currently under development near Holbrook in north-east Arizona, and is scheduled to have 600MW of solar generation capacity and 1,900MWh of energy storage capacity.
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Clenera expects to reach ready-to-build status at the project in the third quarter of 2025, and reach commercial operation in mid-2027, at which point APS will acquire both solar and storage capacity under a fixed-price PPA for 20 years. The company noted, however, that if it does not secure permitting for the project by March 2025, it is able to terminate the PPA without any “material termination costs”.
“This marks a major stepping stone for Clenera and Enlight in Arizona,” said Adam Pishl, CEO of Clenera, which is the US subsidy of Enlight Renewable Energy. “We have spent years working with local and state regulators to design a project that fits the location, makes excellent use of the land, and will be a generational benefit to the region.”
Clenera is also developing a second phase at the Snowflake project, which will add an additional 650MW of solar generation capacity and 2,100MWh of energy storage capacity, although the company has not provided a timeline for this second phase.
The news follows Enlight’s start of construction at three other projects in the US, and its commissioning of another solar-plus-storage project in the south-west, the 364MW Atrisco project in New Mexico. The company signed a PPA with another utility, the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), for the project.
Last month, Ørsted and utility Salt River Project (SRP) announced that their Eleven Mile Solar Center project had reached commercial operations, the largest operational solar-plus-storage project in Arizona. According to figures from Wood Mackenzie, the state is a leader in the US storage sector, accounting for 23% of the country’s new storage capacity additions in the second quarter of this year, behind only California.
