Borrego announced today that it has been selected by Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC to engineer and construct two utility-scale solar projects in Montana and South Dakota. The projects are the first for Borrego in the two states.
The 80 MW-AC Montana Sun (MTSun) Solar project is located on a 489-acre site in Yellowstone County, Montana. The 80 MW-AC Fall River Solar project is sited on a 500-acre parcel in Fall River County, South Dakota. Both projects will begin construction in Q4 2021 and are scheduled to be operational in December 2022. When completed, the two solar plants will be among the largest in their respective states.
Montana Sun will generate 183,301 megawatt-hours of power annually, enough to power 17,107 Montana homes, while offsetting 143,193 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Fall River Solar will generate 190,156 megawatt-hours, enough to power 17,747 South Dakota homes, while offsetting 148,548 tons of CO2 emissions.
Both projects have long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) in place with local investment-grade utilities: Montana Sun with Northwestern Energy and Fall River with Black Hills Power. GREC acquired both projects from Broad Reach Power (BRP) as part of its strategy to own and operate large-scale utility solar plants.
"We've worked with Borrego on a number of distributed generation solar projects and consider them a valued EPC partner," said Charles Wheeler, CEO of GREC. "These utility-scale projects mark the latest step in each companies' gigawatt ambitions, and we look forward to bringing clean energy, and the jobs that come with it, to the emerging Montana and South Dakota solar markets."
"These projects represent the latest—and biggest—additions to Borrego's quickly growing utility-scale solar resume," said Brian Barker, who was recently promoted to executive vice president of Borrego's EPC unit. "Our success comes from having the confidence of partners like Greenbacker to help them make better decisions through project risk mitigation, module procurement and project optimization, ultimately increasing project financial returns."