BayWa r.e., the renewable energy unit of a major German industrial conglomerate, is moving into its new Americas headquarters offices at the gleaming new Boardwalk office complex in Irvine as it continues to see room for plenty more growth.
The new location will also house the company’s solar projects group and the remote operations control center for all of the company’s solar power systems under management in the Americas, said Axel Veeser, BayWa r.e. USA LLC managing director.
The “r.e.” in the company’s name stands for renewable energy.
“The Americas are a core market for us and we continue to expand through organic growth and acquisition,” Veeser told the Business Journal by email on Sept. 10. “We are in the final stages of completing our new offices in Irvine at the Boardwalk.”
The company, now at the Oracle office tower along Von Karman Avenue, will have about 60 employees in the new space along Jamboree Road, not far from John Wayne Airport.
BayWa r.e. is growing. It recently bought Enable Energy Inc. of Sacramento, a commercial and industrial solar and energy storage solutions provider. Financial terms were undisclosed.
Its solar projects unit for the Americas had four job openings in Irvine posted on its website as of Sept. 14.
Expansion Strategy
“The acquisition represents the latest move in BayWa r.e.’s growth and expansion strategy in the Americas,” the company said. “Our midterm objectives are to continue to grow and build on this success, and we may consider further acquisitions as part of this approach.”
The addition of EEI’s pipeline will push the company’s total pipeline of solar and wind projects to more than five gigawatts in the region. One gigawatt is roughly equivalent to 3.1 million industrial-sized photovoltaic panels, or 412 utility-scale wind turbines, according to the Department of Energy.
“Enable Energy is one of the fastest-growing solar and energy storage solutions providers in the U.S.,” Veeser said.
The Irvine-based unit is part of BayWa AG, a Munich company operating in the agriculture, energy and building materials sectors, while its BayWa r.e. unit is a global renewable energy developer, service provider and distributor.
Utility Scale
The company has 750 megawatts of solar and wind projects under construction in California, North Carolina, Texas and Mexico. BayWa r.e. will pass 1 gigawatt of utility-scale installations in the Americas by the end of 2020.
“All of the projects are currently under construction and so none of them are operational,” Veeser said.
As for the amount of electricity planned, he said “based on a broad approximation of our installations we would estimate that 1GW of installed projects in the Americas would power around 250,000 average U.S. households, based on a mix of models across solar, wind and numbers from the EPA.”
The operating assets developed by BayWa r.e. closest to Irvine are the Jucumba Valley solar park in eastern San Diego County and the Wagner wind farm in the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, Veeser said.
BayWa also designs and develops projects, including solar farms and wind farms. BayWa Group, the German parent company, had revenue equivalent to approximately $20.2 billion in 2019, based on recent exchange rates.
