Southern Power to add 180MW of capacity to Millers Branch solar farm in Texas

“This 180MW renewable energy expansion represents a clean, innovative solution to help a diverse group of customers achieve meaningful progress on their own sustainability objectives,” said Robin Boren, president of Southern Power.

Seven companies have also signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Southern Power to acquire renewable energy credits from the expanded portion of the project. These companies have signed individual PPAs, and a collective deal, operating as the Net Zero Consortium for Buyers (NZCB), which consists of Bio-Rad Laboratories, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco, IDEXX Laboratories, Juniper Networks, PTC and an unnamed healthcare company.

This consortium aims to make signing PPAs more financially viable for the individual member companies, which were eager to purchase renewable electricity, but struggled to install their own solar panels on leased facilities, or acquire power at relatively cheap rates considering their low energy demand. By negotiating as a single bloc, the companies aim to “democratise access” to renewable power for corporate buyers, by enabling them to negotiate as a group for larger supplies of power.

“Aggregating corporate buyers is a critical approach in transitioning to renewable energy, as it helps bring new capacity to the electricity market and opens up the market to smaller buyers,” explained Andy Smith, director of global energy and sustainability at Cisco.

This news follows Southern Power’s commissioning of a 150MW project in Wyoming earlier this week. These two moves will expand the company’s total renewable portfolio to 2.9GW of solar capacity in operation or under construction.