BayWa r.e. a renewable energy company with North American headquarters in Irvine, is getting ready for production at its Fern Solar project in North Carolina, the largest clean electricity project it has developed and built in the U.S.
“It is more than a milestone renewable project—it’s a story about how companies and people can come together to move the needle forward,” said Jam Attari, chief executive of BayWa r.e.’s U.S. solar projects unit.
Attari told the Business Journal the 133.6 megawatt project cost more than $100 million to build and will go online by the end of the year.
With more than 353,000 high-performance photovoltaic panels, the power plant in Edgecombe County will produce an estimated 238 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity annually, enough to power approximately 12,000 homes in North Carolina.
Attari said the electricity will flow into the PJM multi-state regional power grid for local distribution. He declined to say how much revenue the Fern Solar project will produce but said “it’s a competitive price for power in the market.”
“We’ve been constructing all the way through the pandemic,” according to Attari, adding that the plant will stay in BayWa r.e.’s ownership portfolio.
“It’s representative of the broad strength and competitiveness of renewables,” he said. “It’s one of the few markets that’s been growing significantly through the current pandemic.”
BayWa r.e. takes care of everything from site development to project engineering and construction to long-term operations and maintenance. The Irvine-based unit is part of BayWa AG, a Munich conglomerate operating in the agriculture, energy and building materials sectors.
The “r.e.” in the company’s name stands for renewable energy.
Biden, Renewables
Attari sees better conditions for solar and other sources of renewable energy under the Biden administration.
“With the next four years, with the new administration, we expect to see decreasing headwinds that we generally have to deal with. It’s a great outlook for the broader market across the U.S.,” Attari said.
A virtual ribbon-cutting for the Fern Solar project took place Nov. 19, with participation from partner companies, community members, and BayWa r.e. representatives.
Boardwalk Headquarters
BayWa r.e. is growing.
In September it announced the purchase of Enable Energy Inc. of Sacramento, a commercial and industrial solar and energy storage solutions provider. Financial terms were not disclosed. The company says more project announcements are expected late this year and early in 2021.
Its solar projects unit for the Americas had six job openings in Irvine posted on its LinkedIn page as of Nov. 20.
BayWa r.e. moved into its Americas headquarters offices at the new Boardwalk office complex two months ago.
The new location houses the solar projects group and the remote operations control center for all of the company’s solar power systems under management in the Americas.
The company has more than 1 gigawatt of solar and wind projects under construction or in late stage development in California, North Carolina, Texas and Mexico.
The company estimates that 1 gigawatt of installed projects in the Americas would power around 250,000 average households.
