rPlus Energies, the Salt Lake City-based renewables developer, has broken ground on the 200MW Appaloosa Solar 1 project in Iron County, Utah.
The project is the latest addition to the nearly 1GW of utility-scale solar farms installed in Utah to date, and sits adjacent to the Three Peaks solar project which rPlus energy’s leadership team also developed in 2016 as one of the first large-scale solar projects in Utah.
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Appaloosa Solar 1 recently received funding from Greenbacker Capital Management, a renewables and clean energy investment company. It was the latest in a series of collaborations with rPlus Energies that saw the 80MWac Graphite solar project – developed by rPlus and funded by Greenbacker – in Carbon County, Utah, completed in June 2022.
“Building durable partnerships is critical to building the future of energy, and we at Greenbacker are incredibly pleased to continue our partnership with rPlus,” said Ben Tillar, VP of investments at Greenbacker.
Sundt Construction, the same company that built the Graphite solar project, is handling engineering, procurement and construction for Appaloosa Solar 1. The project has two long-term power purchase agreements in place with PacifiCorp on behalf of Meta. These contracts were developed under Rocky Mountain Power’s schedule 34 green tariff. Rocky Mountain Power is Utah, Wyoming and Idaho branch of PacifiCorp.
“We are proud to be back in Iron County with a third project, the largest to date,” said rPlus Energies president and CEO, Luigi Resta. “Iron County has been a fantastic, supportive community and we are happy to continue our approach to build in Utah, by Utah and for Utah with this project.”
Last month, rPlus secured another PPA with PacifiCorp for a 400MWac solar PV project in Emery County, Utah. The project included a 200MW battery energy storage system and is the largest planned solar-plus-storage facility in Utah, according to rPlus Energies.
