Arizona’s largest solar plus storage plant starring Tesla, First Solar and NEXTracker
Arizona utility Salt River Project has brought together a technological trifecta in its recently commissioned single-axis tracker 20 MW solar plus 10 MW/40 MWh energy storage power plant.
by John Weaver | PV Magazine
NextEra
Sometime in 2015, there was an engineer in Juno Beach, Florida looking at a piece of land in Pinal County, Arizona. She was mesmerized by some of the best sunlight on the planet. Across the street, Shelako’s Pecan Farm, in the other direction an electricity substation.
Then she glanced at the hardware specifications: NEXTracker single axis tracker, First Solar thin film solar panels and a Tesla battery. And it must have been at this moment that she most appreciated the beauty that was being built.
NextEra Energy has completed construction of the Pinal Central Solar Energy Center – a 20 MW solar plus 10 MW/ 40 MWh energy storage power plant. The project costs approximately $50 million, employed up to 150 people at its peak, will employ three people permanently, and spreads across 257 acres of already developed desert land.
