RWE’s U.S. Hickory Park solar project with co-located storage facility in operation

• 5 megawatt facility located in southwest Georgia
• Solar PV array coupled with 40 megawatt 2-hour battery energy storage system
• Project has a 30-year utility contract Power Purchase Agreement with Georgia Power

Silvia Ortín, CEO RWE Renewables Americas: "Projects like Hickory Park, with its colocated battery storage system, will become increasingly important as renewables form a bigger part of the energy mix. This project plays an important role in expanding our operating portfolio in the U.S., one of our focus markets."

RWE Renewables’ Hickory Park Solar project, a 195.5-megawatt (MWac) facility coupled with a 40 MW 2-hour battery storage system, located in Mitchell County, Georgia, is in operation. RWE is operator/manager of the solar facility, selling the energy and renewable attributes from the facility to Georgia Power through its Renewable Energy Development Initiative (REDI) program.

In November 2019, the company announced it entered into a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Georgia Power, an investor-owned public utility that serves approximately 2.7 million customers.

“Our largest solar project in the Americas is now benefiting the state of Georgia, including tax revenue to local counties and school districts”, said Silvia Ortín, CEO RWE Renewables Americas. “We are pleased to develop this project and advance solar in the state of Georgia as part of Georgia Power’s REDI program.”

The project connects more than 650,000 solar panels, which together covers an area of about 1,800 acres. The integration of a state-of-the-art DC-coupled storage system allows the project’s energy yield to be optimized and increase the predictability of injection of locally produced electricity into the Georgia Power grid. This demonstrates how RWE is able to propose storage solutions that fit its customers’ needs to integrate more clean energy into the grid.

The U.S. accounts for more than one third of the RWE Group’s renewables capacity playing a key role in RWE’s strategy to grow its renewables business and to become carbon neutral by 2040.

RWE’s very experienced U.S. team is driving the company’s expansion plans not only in onshore wind, solar PV and storage, but also in offshore wind, to contribute to RWE’s ambitious goal of 50 gigawatts net installed capacity in 2030.

RWE constructs, owns and operates some of the highest performing wind, solar and energy storage projects in the U.S. As a leading renewable energy player, the company has more than 30 projects in operation in the U.S., totalling an installed generation capacity of more than 5,000 MW (4,288 MW pro rata) to date with more to come.

The company, together with its  joint venture partner National Grid Ventures, secured area OCS-A 0539 in the New York Bight offshore lease auction in the U.S. with a potential to host 3 GW of capacity, enough to power 1.1 million U.S. homes. In addition, RWE has entered a joint venture, New England Aqua Ventus, focused on floating offshore wind in the state of Maine.