North America PV Snippets: BlueWave, Orbital Solar, ACORE

• BlueWave Solar and Laketricity to launch a joint venture company for floating solar projects in Massachusetts
• Orbital Solar Services has secured a contract for 132.2 MW DC solar farm in the US
• US PREF, part of ACORE, have written to Texas policymakers to clear proposals that enhance electric reliability, and avoid anti-renewable proposals that undermine business development in Texas

Floating solar joint venture: Solar and energy storage company BlueWave Solar has signed a joint venture (JV) agreement with Ciel & Terre subsidiary Laketricity to launch a company to construct future floatovoltaics or floating solar power projects in Massachusetts. With this JV, BlueWave Solar that already operates in the agrivoltaics domain, said it will enter the floating solar space. Laketricity has an existing developed portfolio of more than 155 MW of solar projects and is fully dedicated to commercial and industrial (C&I) and utility scale floating solar project development business. The JV will then expand throughout the Northeast region. Ciel & Terre said it has 21 projects in the US with over 162 MW capacity.

132.2 MW DC EPC Contract for Orbital Solar: Orbital Solar Services (OSS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Orbital Energy Group has won an EPC contract for 132.2 MW DC/100 MW AC utility scale solar project in Southeastern US for an unidentified developer. It needs to complete the project construction and grid connect the same in early 2022. OSS will equip the project with 350,000 solar panels.

Institutional investors write to Texas leaders: An affiliation of institutional investors called the US Partnership for Renewable Energy Finance (PREF) have written to the Governor of Texas Greg Abbott and the Public Utility Commission of Texas and other legislative and regulatory leaders to focus on clearing proposals that enhance electric reliability. At the same time, they urge policymakers to avoid anti-renewable proposals that undermine business development in Texas. Companies forming the PREF are part of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE). They tout more than $70 billion in new investment capital across Texas that the renewable energy sector brings in along with employing thousands of locals.

"While renewable deployment has grown more than 250% in ERCOT over the past decade, ancillary services purchases have remained relatively flat. Rather than improving grid reliability, retroactively changing renewable project economics risks driving existing generation offline, exacerbating the very problem that needs to be solved," reads the letter.