RWE’s US Hickory Park solar project and storage facility in operation

In November 2019, the company announced it entered into a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Georgia Power, an investor-owned public utility that serves approximately 2.7 million customers.

“Our largest solar project in the Americas is now benefiting the state of Georgia, including tax revenue to local counties and school districts,” said Silvia Ortín, CEO RWE Renewables Americas. “We are pleased to develop this project and advance solar in the state of Georgia as part of Georgia Power’s REDI programme.”

The project connects more than 650 000 solar panels, which together covers an area of approximately 1800 acres. The integration of a state-of-the-art DC-coupled storage system allows the project’s energy yield to be optimised and increase the predictability of injection of locally produced electricity into the Georgia Power grid. This demonstrates how RWE is able to propose storage solutions to fit its customers’ needs to integrate more clean energy into the grid.

The US accounts for more than one third of the RWE Group’s renewables capacity, playing a key role in RWE’s strategy to grow its renewables business and to become carbon neutral by 2040.

RWE’s US team is driving the company’s expansion plans not only in onshore wind, solar PV, and storage, but also in offshore wind, to contribute to RWE’s ambitious goal of 50 GW net installed capacity in 2030.

RWE constructs, owns, and operates wind, solar, and energy storage projects in the US. The company has more than 30 projects in operation in the US, totalling an installed generation capacity of more than 5000 MW (4288 MW pro rata) to date with more to come.

The company, together with its joint venture partner National Grid Ventures, secured area OCS-A 0539 in the New York Bight offshore lease auction in the US with a potential to host 3 GW of capacity, enough to power 1.1 million US homes. In addition, RWE has entered a joint venture, New England Aqua Ventus, focused on floating offshore wind in the state of Maine.

For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry, read the latest issue of Energy Global magazine.

Energy Global's Spring 2022 issue

The Spring 2022 issue of Energy Global includes a range of technical articles on energy storage, wind, solar, waste-to-energy, and more. In addition, this issue also features a regional report on the renewable energy market in Asia.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/energy-storage/24062022/rwes-us-hickory-park-solar-project-and-storage-facility-in-operation/