US energy company Southern Power, a subsidiary of utility the Southern Company, has acquired the 200MW Millers Branch solar farm in Texas from EDF Renewables.
The project, in Haskell County in central Texas, is currently under construction, and Southern Power noted that it has the potential to upgrade its power capacity to 500MW. It expects to complete construction on and begin commercial operations at the project in the fourth quarter of 2025.
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Southern Power also announced that, once work at the project is completed, power generated at the project will be sold to Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company is a US manufacturer of instruments and equipment for the laboratory and pharmaceutical fields, and plans to power all of its US sites with renewable power by 2026.
This power purchase agreement was first signed with EDF Renewables in February this year, and Southern Power expects to honour the 20-year arrangement.
“Millers Branch represents a significant milestone for Southern Power as we are entering this project with expansion opportunities,” said Southern Power president Robin Boren. “The project exemplifies Southern Power’s ongoing commitment to enhancing our solar portfolio as we build the future of energy.”
The news is the latest expansion to Southern Power’s renewables portfolio. The company currently operates close to 5GW of renewable projects, including 2.4GW of solar capacity across six US states, but has not commissioned a new solar project in several years, since the Gaskell West 1 project in California began commercial operations in 2018.
The deal is the latest news to come out of the vast Texas solar sector, which boasts the second-largest installed capacity in the US, behind only California. Last week PV Hardware announced plans to open a 6GW tracker manufacturing facility, and Scout Clean Energy signed a power purchase agreement for a 209MW project, in the state.