A 182-megawatt solar office is in the works for West Texas as California-based 174 Power Global Corp. looks to establish the largest of its kind here in the Lone Star State. The $260 million Midway Solar plant began construction on January 18 in Pecos County following more than two years of advancement, according to the organization’s senior chief of improvement in the U.S. East and Mexico area, Deborah Reyes.
The county is now going to be home to two substantially different sun-based power plants, including the Alamo 6 solar farm which is a 110-megawatt project, and the 50-megawatt Pearl project. Both of these projects supply energy to CPS Energy, which is a utility owned by the city of San Antonio. CPS is also America’s largest municipally-owned energy utility.
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This new solar undertaking could control over 36,000 homes throughout Texas during top use anticipated in the late spring. A 25-year contract has been put in place with 174 Power Global Corp. to provide energy generated through this new Midway Solar plant to Austin Energy – another city-owned energy utility. “We signed a power purchase agreement with Austin Energy in October 2015; that became the anchor to the project,” Reyes explained. The agreement is set for 25 years because developers such as this corporation often require that length of commitment due to the massive undertaking of equipment procurement, site development, design, and construction.
The state of Texas included 227 megawatts of solar capacity in their energy portfolio during the third quarter of 2017. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Texas is now seventh in America for sun-based energy establishments with the potential to control close to 370,000 homes over a 1,846-megawatt introductory limit.
