June 8, 2021 David Wagman

CleanCapital said it partnered with CI Renewables to provide financing for 11 projects, totaling 29 MW, which are scheduled to achieve commercial operations in 2021 and 2022. CI will supervise construction of the projects which are in Howard County, Maryland, between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. The dollar value of the financing was not disclosed.

In April, Clean Capital announced a $300 million commitment from Manulife to fund CleanCapital’s investments in middle market solar and storage.

In April 2020 Howard County signed a power purchase agreement for the energy, which is expected to account for around 30% of the county government’s total annual electricity use. The agreement provides a total anticipated cost benefit of $1.2 million for the 25-year life of the contract.

Korean group buys Texas solar

Solar developer 7X Energy sold its 130 MW Elara Energy Project in Frio County, Texas, to KOMIPO America, the U.S. subsidiary of Korea Midland Power Co. Purchase price was not disclosed.

Morgan Stanley Renewables Inc. is anticipated to be the sole tax equity investor for the Elara project. CohnReznick Capital served as the financial advisor to 7X. Elara is currently under construction and is expected to reach full commercial operation in the fourth quarter.

Elara’s energy and environmental attributes are being sold under three long term off-take agreements. Around 30 MW of the energy and environmental attributes produced by Elara will be sold to EDF Energy Services under a long-term power purchase agreement. The remaining 100 MW is subject to a long-term hedge agreement with Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. And, around 100 MW of RECs will be sold to Fathom Energy, LLC under a long-term purchase agreement.

Swinerton Renewable is the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor and SOLV, a subsidiary of Swinerton, will manage the operations and maintenance for the project, which is southwest of San Antonio. The project uses Nextracker components, Power Electronics Freesun HEM inverters, and more than 435,000 Jinko modules.

Power to the people

Southern California Edison said it completed a $740 million upgrade to its West of Devers transmission lines, enabling an estimated 7,000 MW of renewable and battery energy storage from the eastern part of California to reach load centers.

The project removed and replaced conductors and supporting structures of four separate circuits of 220kW transmission lines through an existing 48-mile corridor from the Devers substation near Palm Springs to the Vista and San Bernardino substations in Grand Terrace and San Bernardino, about 200 miles of power lines. The upgrades tripled the capacity of power delivery from 1,600 MW to 4,800 MW.

SCE applied in 2013 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission requesting approvals to build the project. Construction began in early 2018 and the improvements went into service about five months before their originally projected timeframe.