A round-up of the latest news from the US PV sector, including project developments from Ørsted, Candela Renewables and CEP Renewables.
Ørsted completes work on Alabama solar plant
20 September 2021: Renewables developer Ørsted has completed a 227MWac PV project in Alabama, taking its operational solar capacity up to 647MW.
Featuring 670,000 modules, the Muscle Shoals plant has a long-term power purchase agreement in place with utility the Tennessee Valley Authority and will support the sustainability goals of a Facebook data centre in the city of Huntsville.
Ørsted acquired the project in 2020 from Longroad Energy. When that deal was announced, Longroad said the plant would feature First Solar modules, NEXTracker trackers and Power Electronics inverters.
Ørsted, which is aiming to reach 50GW of installed clean energy capacity by 2030, earlier this month appointed a new CEO of its onshore business unit.
Candela Renewables gets green light for Ohio project
20 September 2021: Solar developer Candela Renewables has secured approval from Ohio authorities to build and operate a 110MW PV plant in the state.
Construction of the Mark Center solar project is slated to begin in Defiance County in the fourth quarter of this year, creating around 168 jobs, Candela said.
Founded by former First Solar executives in 2018, Candela Renewables has assembled a portfolio of more than 3.6GW of utility-scale solar projects and 2.2GW of co-located energy storage. The company entered a US solar development agreement with utility Naturgy earlier this year.
CEP Renewables completes PV plant development at former paper mill
20 September: CEP Renewables has developed the second phase of a 16MWdc solar project at an abandoned paper mill in New Jersey.
Construction on the second 8MWdc segment of the plant is expected to begin in Q4 2021, said CEP Renewables, which focuses on developing solar projects at sites such as landfills, former mines and contaminated areas.
Projects such as the New Jersey paper mill installation “can be transformative for communities”, said CEP Renewables CEO Gary Cicero, adding: “They deliver significant revenues to help meet annual municipal budget targets and clean up legacy contaminated properties that have presented a myriad of financial and environmental challenges to the community.”
The company last month revealed plans to construct a 26MWdc solar project at a New Jersey capped landfill.