Spanish independent power producer Grenergy has signed a long-term hybrid power purchase agreement (PPA) with US utility Georgia Power.
The IPP will supply energy from its Beaver Creek hybrid project, which comprises 229MW solar PV and 183MWh battery energy storage system (BESS).
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Located in Baldwin County, Georgia, the 20-year offtake agreement covers the entirety of the output of the solar-plus-storage project and is part of the utility’s Clean and Renewable Energy Subscription (CARES) 2023 programme. The CARES programme allows commercial and industrial (C&I) customers to support their sustainability initiatives through the development of solar PV resources.
Commercial operation of the project is forecast for the third quarter of 2028, with the offtake initiating in May 2029. Once the hybrid project is operational, Georgia Power will carry out the market operations for the BESS.
David Ruiz de Andrés, CEO of Grenergy, said: “Energy demand in the United States is growing at an extraordinary pace, mainly driven by AI. We are seeing very clear opportunities to develop projects with strong returns and value creation potential, especially in the Southeast.”
As Ruiz de Andrés highlighted, energy demand in the US is on the rise, boosted by a strong growth of data centres across the country, on which the Spanish IPP aims to capitalise.
The company has been active in the US since 2022 and currently has a portfolio of 1.2GW solar capacity, 1.7GWh of hybrid projects and 2.3GWh of standalone BESS, with already two operational projects – Stadium (25MWh) and La Feria (25MWh) – in Texas.
Moreover, solar-plus-storage projects such as the Beaver Creek one are an example of the company’s goal to replicate the model implemented in Chile with co-locating solar PV with BESS in the US, as it has also started to implement in Europe.
The complexities of signing an offtake agreement for a co-located BESS PPA have been a key discussion at the Renewables Procurement & Revenue Summit in London this week.
One panellist highlighted the importance of ensuring that developers with expertise in solar PV and BESS understand the intricacies of co-location and the duality between risk and risk mitigation in hybrid projects.
