Renewable energy developer D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for 400MW of solar capacity with US technology giant Meta.
The deal will cover power generated at two DESRI facilities in the US, a 250MW project in the state of Missouri and a 150MW project in the state of Texas. Both projects are expected to reach commercial operation before the end of 2027, and connect to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) grid.
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DESRI will operate the projects once they begin work. The company first purchased development rights for the Texas project in 2016 and currently has close to 3.2GW of solar capacity in operation in the US.
“Our renewable energy partnership with Meta has expanded to span five states, encompassing more than 1,200MWac of clean energy nationwide,” said Hy Martin, DESRI chief development officer. “These projects will support local rural economies and are part of DESRI’s long-term strategy of developing, owning and operating clean energy generation sources in close proximity to new load growth, particularly with our corporate data centre customers in MISO and beyond.”
The news follows DESRI and Meta’s signing of a PPA for a 200MW solar project in Arkansas in 2022, and the former’s commissioning of an 80MW solar project in Utah in May of this year. In September, Australian investment bank Macquarie Asset Management acquired a minority state in the developer for US$1.73 billion, an investment that could help the company expand further.
The growing power demand of data centres, in particular, is becoming more apparent in the power industry. Earlier this year, renewable energy asset owner Brookfield and Microsoft signed the largest offtake agreement in history, for 10.5GW of capacity. In October, Chris Rauscher, head of grid services of virtual power plants (VPPs) at Sunrun told PV Tech Premium that VPPs could help provide “very fast, very flexible clean energy” to data centres in particular.
