US developer Longroad Energy has started building its 379MW Prospero photovoltaic project in Texas.
Prospero, located in Andrews County, will come online in 2020.
The solar project, which has total financing package of $416m (€368m), is also Facebook’s first direct investment in a renewable energy scheme, as the sole tax equity investor in Prospero.
The company’s energy strategy manager Peter Freed said: “We hope such investments can be a new avenue of meaningfully engaging with projects, which might be easier for some companies than a long-term power purchase agreement, thereby unlocking new options for more organizations to meet their goals and grow the market.”
Shell Energy North America has signed a 12-year power purchase agreement for the project’s power offtake, which is one of the first offtake agreements of this type in the solar industry.
Freed said: “Facebook is proud to have helped finance a solar project under this innovative offtake arrangement.”
Longroad Energy chief executive Paul Gaynor said: “From our community stakeholders, to our suppliers, energy off-takers and investors, it takes a lot of hard work and cooperation to complete a project of this magnitude.”
“We are extremely lucky to have had such great partners and are proud to bring this much needed clean energy to the market,” he added.
The project will deliver more than $21m in property taxes and will create several hundred construction jobs as well as jobs for the operating facility.
Prospero is expected to pay more than $23m in wages over the project life.
The project will deploy First Solar panels, TMEIC inverters, and NEXTracker tracking systems.
Swinerton Renewable Energy is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor and the interconnection will be through Sharyland Utilities.