TotalEnergies Starts 380 MW Utility-Scale Solar Plant with Battery Storage in Texas

French Energy major TotalEnergies has started commercial operations of Myrtle Solar, its utility-scale operated solar farm in the United States.

Located south of Houston, Texas, Myrtle has a capacity of 380 megawatts peak (MWp) of solar production and 225 MWh of co-located batteries. With 705,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels installed over an area equivalent to 1,800 American football fields, Myrtle produces enough green electricity to cover the equivalent consumption of 70,000 homes.

70% of Myrtle’s capacity will supply green electricity to the Company’s industrial plants in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. It is part of the Company’s “Go Green” Project, which will enable the Company to cover, by 2025, the power needs and curtail the Scope 1+2 emissions of its industrial sites in Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas, and Carville in Louisiana.

The remaining 30% of Myrtle’s capacity will supply green electricity to Kilroy Realty, a publicly traded real estate company, under a 15-year corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA) indexed on merchant prices. Originally developed by a joint venture of SunChase Power and Eolian, L.P. (Eolian), the Myrtle project was purchased by TotalEnergies in 2021.

In addition to the photovoltaic installations, the solar power plant also features battery energy storage equipment to meet the need for grid stabilization. With a total capacity of 225 MWh, this storage is made of 114 high-tech Energy Storage Systems (ESS) containers designed and assembled by TotalEnergies’ affiliate Saft, which develops cutting-edge industrial batteries.

The Myrtle project, which benefits from the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) Tax Credit mechanisms, will positively contribute to TotalEnergies’ Integrated Power’s profitability target of 12%.

“We are very proud to start up Myrtle, TotalEnergies’ largest-to-date operated utility-scale solar farm with storage in the United States. This startup is another milestone in achieving our goal to build an integrated and profitable position in Texas, where ERCOT is the main electrical grid operator. Besides, the project will enable the Company to cover the power needs of some of its biggest U.S. industrial sites with electricity from a renewable source,” said Vincent Stoquart, Senior Vice President, Renewables at TotalEnergies. “Given the advantages that IRA tax exemptions are generating, we will continue to actively develop our 25 GW portfolio of projects in operation or development in the United States, to contribute to the Company’s global power generation target of more than 100 TWh by 2030.”

“Meeting the demands of relentless economic growth in Texas now depends on companies like TotalEnergies that are constructing solar capacity to operate during high load hours with the added benefit of co-located, fast-responding energy storage facilities that can smoothly and rapidly ramp output each evening and during events of extreme weather, sustained transmission congestion, or unforeseen thermal plant outages,” said Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian.

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. In 2022, TotalEnergies generated more than 33 TWh of electricity, and had a gross renewable electricity generation installed capacity of 17 GW. TotalEnergies will continue to expand this business to grow its power generation to more than 100 TWh by 2030, with the objective of being among the world’s top 5 producers of electricity from wind and solar energy.