Renewables developer Invenergy has begun commercial operations at a 300MW solar PV plant in the US state of Texas.
Dubbed the Delilah I Solar Energy Center, the project is located in Lamar and Red River Counties and has already secured virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) with two automaker giants.
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One will be with Japanese carmaker Honda who will purchase 200MW of the plant’s capacity, while the remainder of the capacity will be purchased by Tesla. This is not the first offtake agreement between Invenergy and Honda, as both companies signed a 200MW offtake agreement back in 2020. This previous offtake with Honda is for a 1.3GW solar PV project currently in construction and comprising five phases.
Coincidentally, one of the phases of that 1.3GW project—the Samson I Solar Energy Centre with a capacity of 250MW—has been acquired by Milwaukee-based utility WEC Energy Group, which has an 80% ownership stake. WEC Energy Group also has a majority ownership (90%) stake in the Delilah I PV plant, which it acquired in April 2024.
Leading state downstream and upstream
Texas is the US state with the most potential for solar PV capacity additions in the coming years, with trade association the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimating a growth of more than 51GW over the next five years. This is more than double the second state with the highest growth in the coming years, California, which is expected to add nearly 23GW of solar PV.
Both states are the leading states in the US in terms of installed capacity, with California having added nearly 50GW as of the third quarter of 2024, while Texas has more than 37.7GW of installed solar PV.
Moreover, Texas is also home to several manufacturing companies ranging from module, inverter, solar shingles and module frame manufacturing. In the past few months a few solar manufacturing companies started production of solar PV modules in Texas, such as Canadian Solar and SEG Solar, while Toyo Solar recently acquired a 2.5GW module assembly plant in the state.
