ACCIONA Energía has acquired Red-Tailed Hawk, a 350-MWac/458-MWdc photovoltaic (PV) project near Houston in Wharton County, Texas, from Avondale Solar, LLC and Solar Plus Development, Inc. AP Solar Holdings, LLC, a full service, utility-scale solar power project developer and affiliate of Avondale Solar, LLC, and Solar Plus Development Inc. developed the project.
The plant will be the largest photovoltaic installation of ACCIONA Energía in the world and will have an estimated investment of US$460M (€407M). The construction phase is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2022, and the plant is expected to be fully operational in 2024. Red-Tailed Hawk will be connected to the Houston grid, which has a high demand and injection capacity, just like ACCIONA Energía’s nearby photovoltaic plant of Fort Bend, already under construction.
Red-Tailed Hawk will have a capacity of 350 MWac of photovoltaic solar energy, enough to meet the energy needs of 66,500 Texas households. The project is expected to create approximately 400 jobs during the peak construction phase and 15 permanent jobs once operational. Additionally, it falls under ACCIONA’s Social Impact Management program, which re-invests a portion of the project’s annual revenue to support education, wellness, and environmental stewardship programs in the community where it operates.
“We are excited to continue our growth in Texas, where we already have two solar projects under construction and three wind farms,” said Joaquin Castillo, CEO of ACCIONA Energía North America. “Red-Tailed Hawk is a clear demonstration of our commitment to the United States, and it brings us one step closer to our goal to double our installed capacity in the country by 2023.”
Red-Tailed Hawk is the company’s third photovoltaic plant in the United States, where ACCIONA Energía has already begun the construction of two other solar farms: Fort Bend (315MWdc) in Texas and High Point (125MWdc) in Illinois. In addition, the company also owns and operates ten wind farms in the US, totaling more than 1GW of wind capacity, and the 64MW Nevada Solar One concentrated solar power facility.
Upon completion of the Red-Tailed Hawk, Fort Bend, and High Point parks, ACCIONA Energía will have over 2 GW capacity of solar and wind energy in the United States. In total, the company has a portfolio of 4GW of projects under development.
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