TotalEnergies has started commercial operations of its 720MWp Danish Fields and 455MWp Cottonwood solar farms with integrated battery storage located in southeast Texas.
These new projects, with a combined capacity of 1.2GW, are part of a portfolio of renewables assets totaling 4GW in operation or under construction in Texas.
Danish Fields (pictured) is the developer’s largest solar farm in the United States, with 1.4 million ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. Danish Fields also features a 225MWh battery storage system supplied by Saft, the battery subsidiary of TotalEnergies.
70% of Danish’s solar capacity has been contracted through long-term Corporate Power Purchase Agreements signed with industry players like Saint-Gobain, featuring an upside sharing mechanism indexed on merchant price.
The remaining 30% will support the decarbonisation of TotalEnergies’ industrial plants in the US Gulf Coast region.
Along with Myrtle Solar which was commissioned in 2023 and the under-construction Hill 1 solar farm, these three projects will cover the electricity consumption of TotalEnergies’ industrial sites in Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas, and Carville in Louisiana.
Cottonwood features over 847,000 ground-mounted PV panels. The site will also feature 225MWh of battery storage supplied by Saft, scheduled for commissioning in 2025. Cottonwood’s electricity production is contracted under long-term PPAs indexed to merchant prices through an upside-sharing mechanism with LyondellBasell and Saint-Gobain, to support their decarbonization efforts.
“The start-ups of Danish Fields and Cottonwood in the fast-growing ERCOT market showcase TotalEnergies’ ability to deliver competitive renewable electricity to support our clients’ decarbonization goals, as well as our own,” TotalEnergies senior vice president, renewables, Olivier Jouny.
“Thanks to these projects, we are delighted to take another step in delivering our strategy across the entire value chain, from power generation to customer delivery, in order to achieve our profitability target of 12% ROACE in our Integrated Power business.”