- Regarded as the largest utility-scale solar farms with batteries in the United States
TotalEnergies has started commercial operations of Danish Fields and Cottonwood, regarded as two utility-scale solar farms, with integrated battery storage located within the southeast of Texas. These new projects, with a combined capacity of 1.2 GW, are part of a portfolio of renewable assets totaling 4 GW in operation or under construction in Texas, TotalEnergies has disclosed.
Danish Fields according to the French major is the company’s largest solar farm in the United States, with a capacity of 720 MWp and 1.4 million ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. The Fields also feature a 225 MWh battery storage system supplied by Saft, the battery subsidiary of TotalEnergies.
Adding that 70% of Danish’s solar capacity has been contracted through long-term Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs) signed with industry players like Saint-Gobain, which features an upside sharing mechanism indexed on merchant price.
The remaining 30% the statement disclosed would go into supporting the decarbonization of the company’s industrial plants in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. This is besides the Myrtle Solar which was commissioned in 2023, and the under-construction Hill 1 solar farm – the three projects which are expected to cover the electricity consumption of TotalEnergies’ industrial sites in Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas, with Carville in Louisiana.
And Cottonwood has a capacity of 455 MWp featuring over 847,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. The site will also feature 225 MWh of battery storage supplied by Saft, scheduled for commissioning in 2025. Cottonwood’s electricity production is contracted under long-term PPAs indexed to merchant prices through an upside-sharing mechanism with LyondellBasell and Saint-Gobain to support their decarbonization efforts.
Olivier Jouny, Senior Vice President, Renewables at TotalEnergies said: “The start-ups of Danish Fields and Cottonwood in the fast-growing ERCOT market showcase TotalEnergies’ ability to deliver competitive renewable electricity to support our clients’ decarbonization goals, as well as our own. Thanks to these projects, we are delighted to take another step in delivering our strategy across the entire value chain, from power generation to customer delivery, in order to achieve our profitability target of 12% ROACE in our Integrated Power business.”
TotalEnergies, from their disclosures, is one of the top renewable energy players in the United States, with a portfolio of large-scale solar, storage, onsite B2B solar distributed generation, onshore and offshore wind projects. The Company says it aims to achieve a combined gross capacity of 10 GW by 2025 and more than 25 GW by 2030. The Company also said it has added 1.5 GW of flexible power production capacity with the acquisition of three gas-fired power plants in Texas. All of this as part of its ambition, says the Company, to get to net zero by 2050, and this is also as it pursues its “world class cost-competitive portfolio” which combines renewables (solar, onshore and offshore wind) and flexible assets (CCGT storage) to deliver clean firm power to its customers. Adding that Mid-2024, its gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity was 24 GW, even as it continues to expand this business to reach 35 GW in 2025 and more than 100 TWh of net electricity production by 2030.