Largest solar power plant in US secures $1.3 billion…

Authored by canarymedia.com and submitted by captainquirk
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This week, Primergy Solar, a subsidiary of investment manager Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, announced that it has secured financing for its long-planned 690-megawatt (AC) Gemini solar-plus-storage project. Located in southern Nevada, the project is set to be the largest continuous solar installation in the United States — and one of the largest in the world — when it’s completed in 2023.

Once operational, the facility, which is being built 33 miles northeast of Las Vegas on the Moapa River Indian Reservation, will deliver solar-generated renewable energy under a 25-year power purchase agreement to public utility NV Energy.

Primergy CEO Ty Daul said in a statement, ​“With the suppliers and contractors engaged and the financing secured, we are ready to begin construction on this unprecedented project.”

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Financing a billion-dollar project and selecting vendors

Debt financing for the Gemini project is made up of $1.3 billion in credit facilities, including a construction/​term loan, tax-equity bridge loan and letter of credit facility. The financing also includes $532 million in tax-equity commitments, one of the largest single-asset tax-equity solar financings ever completed in the U.S., according to Quinbrook.

Primergy selected Kiewit Power Constructors as Gemini’s engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) partner and IHI Terrasun Solutions as the integrator for the project’s 380 megawatt/1,520 megawatt-hour lithium-ion battery. Gemini will be able to produce power year-round, but its battery will play a crucial role principally in the summer and particularly from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., according to the company.

Gemini will deploy nearly 1.8 million shingled bifacial photovoltaic modules that use high-efficiency mono-PERC solar cells manufactured by Maxeon Solar Technologies in Malaysia and assembled by Maxeon in Mexicali, Mexico (for the tariff-minded). The panels will be supplied over a four-quarter period starting in the second quarter of 2022 and ending in 2023 when the project is slated to be completed.

Array Technologies will supply single-axis solar trackers for the immense project. Chief revenue officer Travis Rose said that the tracker firm has worked closely with Keiwit, the EPC, to optimize the centralized tracker design and ensure that there’s as little grading as possible. Array’s design uses longer tracker rows that require fewer foundations to be driven. Array notes that it intends to source up to 90 percent of the bill of materials for the project domestically.

The on-site construction workforce is expected to average 500 to 700 construction workers, with a peak of up to 900 workers, supporting up to an additional 1,100 jobs in the local community and injecting an estimated $712.5 million into the economy during construction.

newleafkratom on May 1st, 2022 at 17:55 UTC »

"This week, Primergy Solar, a subsidiary of investment manager Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, announced that it has secured financing for its long-planned 690-megawatt (AC) Gemini solar-plus-storage project. Located in southern Nevada, the project is set to be the largest continuous solar installation in the United States — and one of the largest in the world — when it’s completed in 2023."

"...Despite these promises, the final environmental impact statement acknowledges that the project will cause the loss of at least 215 adult and 900 juvenile desert tortoises, as well as impact surprisingly diverse but sparsely distributed wildlife. The area is also home to rare plants, including the threecorner milkvetch, which may also be threatened by construction." 

Noctudeit on May 1st, 2022 at 14:41 UTC »

Great news, but I would also like to read about plans for more nuclear.

Action-a-go-go-baby on May 1st, 2022 at 14:23 UTC »

Will be nice when the most consistent from of energy we have in our solar system (the sun) can be harvested efficiently enough that we can stop worrying about all this earthly material expenditure (outside production costs, obviously)

I think it’ll solve a lot of problems when electrical power is no longer a service but a human right