Bryan Texas Utilities has entered into a 15-year agreement with a utility-scale solar plant development company to buy 100 megawatts of generation from a solar project in northeast Texas to be constructed in 2022. The developer of the project builds, owns, and operates power generation and energy storage projects in North America, South America, Asia, and Europe.
“The price of wholesale solar energy has fallen significantly over the past ten years and BTU is taking advantage of the opportunity to add a significant amount of additional capacity to our broad portfolio of wholesale generation resources,” says BTU General Manager Gary Miller.
BTU’s carefully considered economic decision to purchase additional solar generation capability is part of BTU’s forward-looking generation plan to ensure that the utility’s customers will have competitively priced power for the future electric demands of the Brazos Valley.
There is no regulatory requirement for municipally owned utilities, like BTU, to purchase renewable energy. To the extent not utilized by BTU customers, renewable energy credits created by BTU’s wind and solar power contracts are currently sold to other market participants. ERCOT, the Independent System Operator of the transmission grid covering about three-fourths of Texas, administers the state’s Renewable Energy Credit trading program.
BTU will not own the facility but will purchase 100 MW beginning in 2022. To give some perspective, 100 MW of solar generation in Texas can serve the daytime energy needs of approximately 20,000 homes on a hot summer afternoon and during other times of the year, more than twice that in normal use periods. This purchase will augment the current 70 MW of wind and solar generation capacity that is already in BTU’s portfolio and will serve up to one-third of BTU’s total system demand at certain times.
