US renewables company Intersect Power has started commercial operations at its Oberon solar and storage project in the US state of California, which has a power capacity of 679MWp and a co-located 250MW/1GWh battery storage facility.
The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approved the project in July 2022 and Oberon Solar, a subsidiary of Intersect Power, completed much of the construction work with US companies. The project uses modules built in Ohio by First Solar, NX Horizon trackers developed by Nextracker and batteries produced in a Tesla factory in California, as the developers looked to take advantage of tax benefits offered to new clean power projects that rely on equipment and components made in the US.
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“The Oberon project is much more than a new source of clean power for California,” said Intersect Power CEO Sheldon Kimber. “It is also a case study in how the clean energy industry can maximise project benefits by prioritising domestic supply chains and union labour to ensure the rewards of the clean energy transition are felt by all Americans.”
The project is also the first to reach commercial operation permitted under the BLM’s Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, a programme implemented in California in 2016 that marks some land as protected, either due to its ecosystems or ownership by Native American groups, and encourages the development of new renewable projects on other land.
The successful construction and commissioning of a project approved under this programme could be a significant proof of concept for California’s influential solar sector.
The news follows the commissioning of other battery storage projects in the state – the US’ largest with nearly 7GW online today – such as B2U Storage Solutions’ 3MW/12MWh project in New Cuyama yesterday, while last week Aypa Power secured financing for a 100MW/400MWh project in the state.