BayWa RE will officially open its almost 134MW Fern solar farm in North Carolina on 19 November.
The company will hold a virtual ribbon-cutting for the project, which is the largest solar development by BayWa RE in the US.
Fern features more than 353,000 photovoltaic panels that will produce an estimated 238 gigawatt-hours of electricity a year.
The project created some 500 construction and related jobs, and will generate tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes annually for Edgecombe County over the lifetime of the plant, BayWa RE said.
Fern also benefits from virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs).
Facilitated by LevelTen Energy, the VPPA brought together an anchor tenant group comprised of Bloomberg, Cox Enterprises, Gap Inc, Salesforce and Workday to form a corporate renewable energy aggregation group.
The group will purchase the output of 42.5MW of the plant’s installed generating capacity. Starbucks entered into a separate VPPA for 46 MW.
BayWa RE secured tax equity from RBC Capital Markets, which syndicated an investment commitment, and secured construction and permanent debt from Rabobank and Banco Sabadell.
The company is also partnering on a solar job training program with the Center for Energy Education (C4EE) in North Carolina.
The training targets residents who are unemployed or underemployed, and needing a second chance.
C4EE graduates earn first consideration for hire at local solar project sites.
BayWa RE Solar Projects chief executive Jam Attari said: “Fern Solar is our largest solar project built to date in the US, but it is more than a milestone renewable project – it’s a story about how companies and people can come together to move the needle forward.
“The world is rapidly transitioning to clean energy, and we’ll get there faster when we innovate together.”