Friday, April 11, 2025

Solar -- Texas -- Major Installation Hits Milestone -- April 11, 2025

Locator: 48458SOLAR.

Question not being asked: why this location? Yes, once electricity enters the grid it can go anywhere, but generally, it seems, projects provide electricity for local / regional consumption. LDC? ERCOT debacle some years ago? But solar not much good in the middle of winter. Permian expansion? Bottom line: ERCOT is an island. Electricity produced here, stays here. 

Everything's bigger in Texas: Electrek reports on a "vast 600 MW Texas solar farm." Link here. To put that in perspective, a typical nuclear reactor generates around 1,000 MW (1 gigawatt) of electricity. 

  • developer: Vesper Energy
  • project: Hornet Solar
  • milestone: one million panels installed
  • location: Swisher County, TX (never heard of it before)
  • output: 600 MW, enough to power 160,000 typical homes
  • Vesper's total investment in state of Texas: $45 billion -- that's with a "B"
    • Vesper: for solar, currently ranked #2 in the US with 37 GW installed
    • again, Vesper's total installed based: 37 GW; Hornet Solar, huge, will add 1.6% to Vesper's total solar output in US
    • Vesper: for solar, will install 51 additional GW over the next five years
    • will move Vesper into #1 when additional projects come on line
  • tax revenue: will generate > $100 million in new tax revenue to Swisher County
  • Swisher County: at the base of the Texas panhandle where the panhandle connects to the rest of Texas; five counties south of Oklahoma; we're talking remote.
    • county population: 7,000
    • county seat: Tulia, population 5,000
    • I can't even imagine what 7,000 folks will do with $100 million annually, although the July, 1999, drug bust could provide some interesting commentary
  • footprint: 1.36 modules covering more than six square miles
    • a typical North Dakota township is six-mile square, or 36 square miles
    • a typical North Dakota section contains 640 acres, and is one-square mile
    • Hornet Solar: six "North Dakota" sections of land

Excited: when one steps back and looks at this objectively -- this is simply amazing! Huge project. All this electricity for this one state! One really gets the feeling that the US is on the cusp for a huge energy breakout. Except perhaps for Spain, western Europe has no land for such huge solar projects. Likewise, wind -- Europe doesn't have the space. But then Europe doesn't need more electricity; demand is falling. 

**************************
Masters

After the first round, the cut looks like it will be +1 or less. Perhaps one under will be the cut. 

*********************
Inflation Watch

Are you paying upwards of $6.99 for a Hallmark greeting card at your local supermarket?

Here, north Texas. $2.99 for two classy cards. Too bad first class stamps are up to 75 cents or thereabouts. I've lost track; using forever stamps bought some time ago.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.