TotalEnergies Begin Commercial Operations of Two US Solar Farms

Global integrated energy company TotalEnergies has said that it has started commercial operations of Danish Fields and Cottonwood, two utility-scale solar farms with integrated battery storage located in southeast Texas in the US.

These new projects, with a combined capacity of 1.2 GW, are part of a portfolio of renewable assets totalling 4 GW in operation or under construction in Texas, TotalEnergies said on Monday.

Danish Fields is TotalEnergies’ largest solar farm in the US, with a capacity of 720 MW and 1.4 million ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. Danish Fields also features a 225 MWh battery storage system supplied by Saft, the battery subsidiary of TotalEnergies.

As much as 70% of Danish’s solar capacity has been contracted through long-term Corporate Power Purchase Agreements (CPPAs) signed with industry players like Saint-Gobain, featuring an upside sharing mechanism indexed on merchant price.

The remaining 30% will support the decarbonisation of TotalEnergies’ industrial plants in the US Gulf Coast region. Along with Myrtle Solar which was commissioned in 2023 and the under-construction Hill 1 solar farm, these three projects will cover the electricity consumption of TotalEnergies’ industrial sites in Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas, and Carville in Louisiana.

Cottonwood has a capacity of 455 MW featuring over 847,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. The site will also feature 225 MW 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 decarbonisation efforts.

Olivier Jouny, Senior Vice President, Renewables at TotalEnergies, said that the start-ups of Danish Fields and Cottonwood in the fast-growing Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) market showcase TotalEnergies’ ability to deliver competitive renewable electricity to support their clients’ decarbonisation goals, as well as their 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,” he added.

TotalEnergies is one of the top renewable energy players in the US, with a portfolio of large-scale solar, storage, onsite B2B solar distributed generation, onshore and offshore wind projects. The Company aims to achieve a combined gross capacity of 10 GW by 2025 and more than 25 GW by 2030. TotalEnergies has also added 1.5 GW of flexible power production capacity with the acquisition of three gas-fired power plants in Texas.

TotalEnergies and Electricity

As part of its ambition to get to net zero by 2050, TotalEnergies is building a world class cost-competitive portfolio combining renewables (solar, onshore and offshore wind) and flexible assets (CCGT, storage) to deliver clean firm power to its customers. Mid-2024, TotalEnergies’ gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity was 24 GW.

TotalEnergies will continue to expand this business to reach 35 GW in 2025 and more than 100 TWh of net electricity production by 2030. Active in about 120 countries, TotalEnergies places sustainability at the heart of its strategy, its projects and its operations.