US renewable energy firm Clēnera has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Arizona Public Service (APS), the state’s largest utility, to sell power from its CO Bar solar and storage complex.
Clēnera, a subsidiary of Israeli renewable power firm Enlight, is currently completing construction work at the project, and expects to begin commercial production in 2025. The company plans for the project to have a total solar capacity of 1.2GW, alongside 824MWh of battery storage, and the PPA signed with APS will see all of this storage capacity, plus 258MW of solar capacity, supplied to the utility.
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“We are excited to work with APS to develop the first combined solar and storage project at the CO Bar complex and help drive Arizona’s clean energy initiatives to deliver affordable, clean power to households in the state,” said Gilad Yavetz, Enlight CEO.
The news follows Clēnera’s signing of two PPAs for the CO Bar facility with the Salt River Project, a separate Arizona utility, and the entirety of the project’s planned solar capacity is now accounted for with corporate arrangements. The deal with APS, however, is the first PPA to include the project’s battery storage components.
The agreement is APS’ latest involvement in the Arizona battery sector, following the signing of a toiling arrangement with Canadian Solar for a 1.2GWh battery storage project. The US Solar Energy Industries Association reported that, in the first quarter of this year, Arizona contained the fifth-most solar capacity of any US state, and expects the state to add 10.6GW of new capacity over the next five years.
Enlight has also invested in solar and storage projects beyond the US, following the start of commercial operations in Israel and Hungary this week. The two projects, the Sde Nitzan project in Israel and the ACDC project in Hungary, have a combined solar capacity of 49MW, and the Sde Nitzan project boasts an additional 40MWh of storage capacity.
