Danish power company Ørsted, best known for its utility-scale wind power engagement, has committed positively on the 471-MW Mockingbird Solar Center in Texas.
The project, which will be built on 4,900 acres, is expected to generate enough renewable energy to power over 80,000 homes per year, the company says.
Mockingbird will also represent the largest solar PV project in Ørsted’s portfolio till date. Construction is set to begin this month with completion expected in 2024.
In addition to building the solar center, Ørsted will also donate almost 1,000 acres of land adjacent to the project to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to protect native prairie in north-east Texas, making it the largest preservation effort on record for this type of native prairie.
“Adding almost half a gigawatt to our portfolio, the decision to build Mockingbird represents an important milestone for our onshore business and for our expansion in solar PV," David Hardy, CEO of Region Americas at Ørsted, said. "We look forward to building Mockingbird and for this project to start producing clean energy at a large scale. Mockingbird will achieve this while doing so in a way that prioritizes conservation and our deep commitment to the communities we serve.”
The land set to be protected will be transferred to TNC before the solar farm becomes operational and starts supplying the community with renewable energy.
“We need to deliver green energy for this generation while protecting natural habitats for the next. That’s why we’ve prioritized the Smiley-Woodfin Prairie in Texas as our first biodiversity initiative in the United States,” said Daniel Willard, Biodiversity Specialist at Ørsted. “We want to thank The Nature Conservancy for working with us on this conservation effort. Drawing on both internal expertise and outside guidance, we’ll continue to look for opportunities to protect the prairie and ensure that native plants and pollinators thrive.”
In 2021, Ørsted entered into a 10-year corporate power purchase agreement with Royal DSM, a global company that uses bioscience to improve health and nutrition of people, animals, and the planet. Royal DSM will be buying a portion of the power generated by the Mockingbird site as part of its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 59% by 2030, compared to the baseline year of 2016.
Ørsted has a total of 5.5 GW of onshore renewable energy capacity, including onshore wind, solar, and storage, either in operation or under construction worldwide. Out of this, 1.8 GW is solar PV. The company says it is on track to reach a total of 17.5 GW of onshore capacity globally by 2030, and has a goal of installing 50 GW of renewable energy by the end of the decade, with 30 GW of this being offshore wind.
