Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved the construction of Invenergy’s 300MW utility-scale solar farm, which is to be paired with a 165MW battery energy storage system (BESS), in Dane County.
The Koshkonong Solar Energy Center project will be built by solar developer Invenergy with construction starting this fall and the project is expected to be completed by the end of 2024.
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This is not the first solar plus storage project Invenergy is working on in Wisconsin, with a 200MW solar PV and 110MW BESS in Kenosha County that was approved in December 2020 and another one in Walworth and Rock Counties with 250MW of solar energy and 75MW of BESS waiting for approval.
“It is absolutely important that the Commission continues to approve utility-scale projects like this one. Our state’s power utilities are making some real strides, like investing in more solar energy capacity and storage,” said Chelsea Chandler, director of Climate, Energy and Air Program at Clean Wisconsin.
Clean Wisconsin, who submitted expert testimony for the project, said the solar farm would have benefits from the environment by reducing phosphorous runoff in the waterways by converting crop land to grassland for the solar PV project.
Earlier this year, Invenergy partnered with Lafayette Square to form a community-solar led joint venture, called Reactivate, with the aim to develop 3GW of renewable capacity by 2030.
PV Tech Premium spoke with Utopia Hill, Reactivate’s head of engineering, procurement and construction, last month about the challenges of reaching 3GW of community solar.
In January 2022, Invenergy received a US$3 billion investment from Blackstone which will help accelerate the build-out of solar PV projects.