New Energy Solar Announces U.S. Solar Farm Completion

Australia’s New Energy Solar has announced construction of the Mount Signal 2 solar plant in California is complete.

Sydney headquartered New Energy Solar (NEW) was established in 2015 and acquires, owns and manages large scale solar energy generation facilities both locally and overseas.

The Mount Signal 2 solar farm is located in the Imperial Valley of southern California, approximately 175km east of San Diego. The 200MWdc project was acquired by NEW last year.

A 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) has been secured with Southern California Edison (SCE) for the project, but that doesn’t kick off until June next year. In the interim, Mount Signal 2 will be selling electricity into the wholesale market. The clean power station is current undergoing further testing before it achieves “Substantial Completion” status, which is expected next month.

“Mount Signal 2 is the largest plant in NEW’s portfolio, employing almost 500,000 solar panels, and its commencement of operations is a significant achievement,” said CEO John Martin.

The firm estimates Mount Signal 2 will generate 464,200 megawatt-hours in its first year of generation.

New Energy Solar now has 16 operating assets – up from 4 when it listed on the ASX just over two years ago. The firm has 772MWdc of operational solar capacity; up 70% compared to 454MWdc at the end of December last year.

Australian Solar Energy Assets

Among those assets is the 110.9MWdc Beryl Solar Plant near Gulgong in New South Wales, which it acquired from First Solar. 69% of the electricity generated by Beryl is being used to offset all the operational electricity requirements of the Sydney Metro Northwest railway under a 15-year PPA. In July this year, Kellogg’s Australia signed on for 29% of Beryl’s output initially, enabling the firm to acquire 100 per cent of its forecast energy requirements for manufacturing operations in New South Wales from renewables.

New Energy Solar’s other Australian PV facility is the 55.9MWdc Manildra Solar Power Plant located approximately 45 kilometres west of Orange in New South Wales – a project it also acquired from First Solar. That facility sells electricity and Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) to EnergyAustralia under an initial 10-year PPA with an option to extend.

Combined, the company’s current operational Australian and U.S. assets can generate more than 1,600,000 MWh of electricity annually says NEW, while avoiding more than 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.

It doesn’t appear New Energy Solar will be stopping here – it says it has a “deep pipeline” of opportunities primarily across the USA and  in Australia.