Pattern Energy, which owns over 870 MW of wind generation in Texas, has closed on the financing of its first solar project in the state, a 105 MWdc unit to be located in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market's North Zone whose output will be sold to a real estate trust company's data center.
Pattern, which was taken over in a share buyout by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in March, and has four wind farms that sell power in ERCOT's West and South zones, said its Phoenix Solar facility — to be built in Fannin County just north of Dallas — is expected to be completed in mid-2021.
The project has a 12-year power purchase agreement with Digital Realty, a provider of carrier- and cloud-neutral data center, co-location and interconnection solutions.
Mike Garland, CEO of Pattern, said in a statement Aug. 24: "Phoenix Solar is one of many solar projects we have in development across Texas and around the world."
Matt Dallas, a company spokesman, said in an email, "This is our first solar project in Texas but it is definitely not the start of our solar business."
He said Pattern has developed more than 5 GW of solar and wind power facilities, "including solar power facilities in Chile (Conejo Solar, the country's largest), Japan (we developed and operate solar projects in Japan through our wholly-owned partner GPI, which we acquired in early 2018), Mexico, and the United States."
"We are currently developing solar projects in several states around the country," the spokesman said. "We haven't disclosed names and locations of those projects, but we expect to have some news on them later this year."
The Phoenix facility will be connected to transmission facilities owned and operated by Oncor Electric Delivery, the largest transmission system in Texas.
Under the long-term PPA, a portion of the metered output of the Phoenix facility will be sold to Digital Realty Trust for resale. The remaining metered output of the solar facility will be sold for resale into the ERCOT energy-only market.
Pattern said ING Capital provided construction and term project financing and tax equity was provided by RBC Community Investments, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada.
260-MW Impact Solar could start this year
ERCOT has estimated that by the end of 2020, there will be about 5.770 GW of utility-scale solar generation installed across its footprint.
In 2019, according to ERCOT data, a total of 76.7 million MWh of wind power was generated, or 19.97% of the total MWh generated in ERCOT, and 4.3 million MWh generated by solar, or 1.5% of the total.
According to data compiled by S&P Global Platts, the ERCOT North Zone is the most active power delivery point in the US in terms of wholesale power sold. In the first quarter of 2020, the total came to 92.9 million MWh.
A total of 34 companies reported sales in ERCOT North in Q1, but none was reported by Pattern. The top seller was Shell Energy North America with sales of 33.8 million MWh, followed by Citigroup Energy with 21.7 million MWh.
In March, Lightsource BP, a joint venture, announced it had reached financial close on the 260-MW Impact Solar project slated for Lamar County, Texas, located 120 miles northeast of Dallas.
It was announced at the same time that construction of the project had already begun, with commercial operations expected to begin by the end of 2020. Power from the project is to be traded by BP, the joint venture also said.
Pattern, however, has been most active in Texas in selling power from its wind farms in the ERCOT West Zone, where its sales totaled 275,959 MWh in Q1, giving it a ranking of 25th out of 52 sellers in the West Zone.
The total amount of wholesale power sold in ERCOT West Zone in Q1 was 32 million MWh.
The two biggest wholesale power sellers in ERCOT West in Q1 were Citigroup Energy and Shell Energy North America, selling 5.8 million MWh and 5.1 million MWh, respectively.
In ERCOT's South Zone, 17.6 million MWh was sold in Q1. Pattern's sales in the zone totaled 17,983 MWh, or around 0.10% of that market.
