EDP Renewables North America (EDPR NA) has inaugurated the 200MW/40MW Scarlet I solar-plus-storage project in Fresno County, California.
The project’s solar and energy storage capacity is contracted under two power purchase agreements (PPAs) with local Californian electricity suppliers; Ava Community Energy for 100MW of solar capacity and 30MW of energy storage and San José Clean Energy for the remaining 100MW of solar and 10MW of energy storage.
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EDPR NA added that it is “actively exploring” the possibility of incorporating agrivoltaics – the practice of using land for the dual purposes of solar generation and farming – at the site, particularly looking at sheep grazing.
The developer – a subsidiary of Portuguese utility EDP Renewables – is currently engaged in a module supply deal with US cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin-film module manufacturer First Solar, signed in April 2023. The 1.8GW deal was expected to support EDPR NA’s US solar projects through 2026.
“California remains a priority state for EDPR NA’s development efforts, and we are pleased to finalise this significant solar-plus-storage project in The Golden State,” said Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP Renewables North America. “Scarlet I will be a benchmark project as we look to develop additional hybrid multi-technology renewable projects across our portfolio and contribute further to grid resiliency.”
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) took control of the Ten West transmission link last month with a view to increasing the state’s grid resiliency. The 125-mile transmission line between Arizona and California will support 3.2GW of new renewable energy projects, many of which will be solar PV and solar-plus-storage projects.
According to data from a PV Tech Premium report earlier this year, Fresno County has the longest interconnection queue for renewable energy of any county in the US. As a whole, California has around 440GW of capacity in its interconnection queue, more than half of which is energy storage.
The same article said that around half of the total 1TW of solar in the US interconnection queue was made up of hybrid solar-plus-storage projects.
EDPR NA already has 248MW of operating renewable energy assets in California, notably the Lone Valley PV project in San Bernadino County. It is currently developing the 300MW Sandrini Solar Park in Kern County, California, for which EDP inked a PPA with oil giant Shell in 2022. Since that deal was signed, Sandrini Solar’s capacity has been expanded from 200MW to 300MW.
