Enel starts construction of firm’s second North American solar-storage project

Pictured is Enel Green Power’s 150MW Aurora distributed solar plant in Minnesota. Image: Enel Green Power.

Enel Green Power has broken ground on its second North American solar-plus-storage project as it continues to ramp up its US renewables fleet and aims to hit 1GW of deployed battery storage in two years.

Located west of the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Haskell County, Texas, the 284MW Azure Sky project will feature 700,000 bifacial panels and be paired with an 81MW battery. It is expected to be operational by summer 2021.

Enel has signed a power purchase agreement with The Home Depot for a 75MW portion of the project, a deal that represents the retailer’s largest renewable energy procurement.

“This project is testimony to the resilience of the energy transition fuelled by innovation and a steady appetite for renewable energy from commercial customers,” said Salvatore Bernabei, newly appointed CEO of Enel Green Power.

The groundbreaking comes after Enel announced its first US solar-storage hybrid project in July alongside plans to install 1GW of battery storage capacity across the company’s renewable portfolio in the country by 2022.

Through its North American “active growth strategy”, Enel Green Power is also aiming to install around 1GW of new utility-scale solar and wind projects in the US and Canada each year until 2022.

The company last month completed the second phase of its Roadrunner solar plant, which has now increased its capacity to 497MW to become the largest PV facility in Texas, bringing the firm’s operating portfolio to more than 6GW of renewable capacity in North America.

Tags: us, solar-plus-storage, enel, enel green power, colocation, utility-scale solar, texas, power purchase agreement, ppa