A company backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group and Ares Climate Infrastructure said three solar power of its projects are now online in Texas. SB Energy, a renewable energy group focused on utility-scale installations, said the solar farms—with about 900 MW of combined generation capacity—will support the state’s power grid and provide electricity for Google’s data centers and its cloud region in the Dallas area.
The Orion I, Orion II, and Orion III installations, collectively known as the “Orion Solar Belt,” are located in Milam County. SB Energy on October 18 said the projects are expected to qualify for the domestic content bonus credit contained in the Inflation Reduction Act. SB Energy said the solar farms utilize more than 1.3 million American-made modules, along with domestic steel and other U.S.-made components.
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm joined SB Energy officials on Friday at a ribbon-cutting for the Orion project. “The Biden-Harris Administration envisioned an industrial strategy for clean energy that’s built and installed by American workers and powering American companies in proud American communities. This future is seen in action through the Orion Solar Belt in Texas,” said Granholm. “This project showcases how American made clean energy can power data centers and our future.”
American-Made Components
Officials said the project is estimated to have employed 3,000 U.S. workers through the manufacturing of the components and construction. The more than 1.3 million solar modules were manufactured by First Solar at its Perrysburg, Ohio facility. The 22,800 tons of structural steel for the entirety of the project is sourced from Gerdau steel mills, located in Midlothian, Texas and Cartersville, Georgia.
The Orion Solar Belt also features Nextracker smart solar trackers, with the majority of the components manufactured domestically. SB Energy selected Blattner, a Minnesota-based construction group, to provide the engineering, procurement and construction services for the project.
“When it comes to actualizing American jobs and providing power to the world’s largest energy users, SB Energy is committed to creating the roadmap,” said Rich Hossfeld, co-CEO of SB Energy. “We are thankful for the support from Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the many federal, local, and statewide leaders, as well as Google. We hope the Orion Solar Belt serves as a catalyst for growing investments in a robust American-made supply chain for solar.”
PPA With Google
SB Energy, which entered the U.S. market in 2019, in 2022 announced a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Google for the project. The company said that PPA represents Google’s largest solar energy investment anywhere in the world, and supports that company’s goal to operate entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030.
Google earlier this year announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in Texas to support its cloud and data center infrastructure. The company said the projects will help meet growing demand for Google Cloud and artificial intelligence, and the company’s other digital products and services such as Search, Maps, and Workspace. Google operates a data center campus in Midlothian and is building a new campus in Red Oak; both properties are in Ellis County in Texas.
“Google’s data centers house some of the world’s most popular services and are a major economic engine for 21st-century business. Our goal is to make sure that the services and products that people and customers use every day are powered by reliable carbon-free energy around-the-clock,” said Ben Sloss, vice president of 24×7 & Capacity for Google. “We’re thrilled SB Energy’s Orion Solar Belt is coming online, helping build a stronger future for communities and Google in Texas.”
Chia Yuan Wang, Gerdau’s president for its North American Long Steel Operation, said, “The commercial operation of the Orion Solar Belt is a tremendous achievement for domestic steel and the U.S. solar industry. As a direct result of SB Energy’s Orion Solar Belt and other solar projects across the country, we have expanded our U.S. operations to support the solar industry at our facilities in Midlothian, Texas as well as our facility in Cartersville, Georgia. We thank SB Energy for its leadership, and we look forward to continuing to support the solar industry.”
Texas leads the nation in installed renewable energy resources; the state at present receives about 30% of its electricity from renewables. Officials said the state has about 70 GW of installed solar, wind, and energy storage generation capacity, according to the American Clean Power group.
Google in recent weeks has said it also wants to use nuclear power, primarily from small modular reactors, to power some of its global data center operations. The company earlier this month signed a deal with Kairos Power to receive energy from a fleet of molten salt nuclear reactors.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).