NextEra Energy expects US to grow its renewables and storage capacity to 7 TW by 2050; KARE acquires 300 MW Rolling Sun Project in Texas; NextEnergy’s NPIII ESG acquires 200 MW solar capacity.
7 TW RE & storage for US by 2050, predicts NextEra: In its June 2022 Investor Conference, NextEra Energy, Inc said it expects the US to grow its renewable energy and storage capacity to around 7 TW by 2050 under a full economy decarbonization, with $4 trillion investment. It will be a growth from 210 GW in 2021. However, if it only aims for power sector decarbonization, the capacity can be expected to grow to 3.55 TW representing an investment of $2 trillion. According to the management, rising power prices and demand for renewable energy credits (REC) due to corporate sustainability goals are stimulating demand for new renewables, along with the fact that these are now cheaper than new gas fired generation ‘after accounting for the impacts of the circumvention investigation and inflation’.
Sensing this opportunity, the group has planned to go Real Zero instead of Net Zero with its flagship brand Florida Power & Light growing its targeted solar capacity by over 20x to more than 90 GW by 2045 (see 90 GW Solar Plan For NextEra’s Real Zero).
Kenlov and Ashtrom expand US pipeline: Israel’s Kenlov Renewable Energy and Ashtrom Group’s US joint venture (JV) has expanded its US development pipeline of wind and solar assets to around 1.5 GW, with the acquisition of a 300 MW PV project. The 300 MW Rolling Sun Project in Bushland, Texas is expected to enter commercial operations in 2025 when it will enter the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) market. The JV Kenlov Ashtrom Renewable Energy (KARE) counts this as its 5th US solar project under development. It aims to grow the US pipeline to exceed 3 GW in the next 3 years. Globally, Kenlov counts its under development, -licensing and -construction wind and solar capacity to have grown to more than 3 GW in North America and Europe. The company targets it to double by 2025.
NextPower expands US solar portfolio with 200 MW: NextEnergy Capital’s NextPower III ESG (NPIII ESG) has acquired 2×100 MW solar projects in Lake Placid, Florida. This is the company’s 4th acquisition in the US taking it to a total of 397 MW. Both the projects will benefit from long-term power purchase agreements (PPA) for 100% of their generation, currently under negotiation for 10 years. With this, NPIII ESG’s total portfolio capacity has expanded to more than 1 GW across the US, Chile, Spain, Portugal, Poland and India.
