Work begins on 104MW Utah solar farm

OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2015. Developers in Utah began construction of the 104MW Red Hills solar facility, which will be the state's largest solar project when completed.

The Red Hills facility will be owned and operated jointly by Google and Norwegian integrated solar producer Scatec Solar, which will sell the project's generation to PacifiCorp subsidiary Rocky Mountain Power under a 20-year power purchase agreement. The project is expected to begin commercial operations this year.

The 104MW plant in Iron County in southwestern Utah closed on an \\$188mn investment package last month, including a round of tax-equity financing from Google, bringing the online search giant's total investment in renewables to \\$1.5bn across 2,500MW of capacity.

Construction of the Red Hills facility comes as Utah moves toward a long-term goal of adding 1,075MW in solar capacity by 2024, which was boosted last week by a \\$600,000 grant from the US Department of Energy to begin planning and implementing a long-term solar deployment strategy.