PV MAGAZINE – Denmark’s largest power provider and wind project developer, Ørsted, has completed its Permian Energy Center project, a 460 MW hybrid solar and battery storage facility located in Andrews County, Texas.
Permian Energy Center brings Ørsted’s onshore operating capacity to 2.1 GW. The project and its 420 MW of solar PV and 40 MW of battery storage are on a 3,600-acre site alongside existing oil and gas installations and will supply growing West Texas demand for electricity.
Ørsted said it is one of the first developers to own the full spectrum of new renewable energy technologies at utility scale in the U.S., onshore and offshore wind, solar PV, and storage. More technical or financial details on the project were not disclosed.
Solar is on track to make up the largest share of new capacity additions in Texas between 2020 and 2022. Almost 50% of the additions during this time period will be solar, surpassing wind (35%) and natural gas (13%) additions, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration.
Factors driving solar investment in Texas include lower solar technology costs and plentiful sunlight, particularly in West Texas’s Permian Basin, where about 30% of the state’s planned solar capacity will be built.
