EDP partners with Google on 500MW distributed solar deal in US

EDP and Google are partnering on what the companies called the largest corporate distributed solar deal in US history.

The agreement between EDPR NA Distributed Generation, the DG business unit of EDP Renewables North America, and the tech giant will support more than 80 distributed solar projects totalling 500MWac generating capacity.

The deal aligns with an environmental justice program benefiting over 25,000 families in low-to-moderate-income (LMI) communities—with an initial focus on projects in the PJM Interconnection service area, which stretches from New Jersey to Ohio. The initial projects will be built in Ohio, where Google operates a data centre campus in New Albany and Google Cloud region in Columbus.

The initiative, named the Clean Energy Financial Benefit Sharing Program, will be funded, in part, through Google’s purchase of a novel renewable energy credit (REC) called the ImpactREC. The ImpactREC carries covenants certifying direct community investment and direct LMI benefit. The program synthetically provides similar economic benefits of community solar in jurisdictions currently lacking supportive legislation.

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The EDPR NA DG team, led by Christopher Rittenhouse and Adam Woda, collaborated with Google over the last two years to conceive and develop the ImpactREC product and its supporting framework agreement.

The Clean Energy Financial Benefit Sharing Program also includes the creation of a community impact fund valued at $12 million. The fund focuses on initiatives reducing energy poverty in the communities where the projects are built.

“The partnership with Google paves the way for the creation of a new, corporate-led, market segment focused on breaking down the typical barriers associated with the rapid, distributed, and equitable decarbonization of the energy system,” said Richard Dovere, Chief Investment Officer of EDPR NA DG.

This story was first published on renewableenergyworld.com