The three projects are Greenbacker’s first assets in the state of Washington
PVTIME – Greenbacker Renewable Energy Company LLC (“GREC” or “Greenbacker”), a leading owner and operator of sustainable infrastructure and energy efficiency projects, announced on February 8 that, through a wholly owned subsidiary, it has purchased a 20-MWdc pre-operational solar portfolio from TUUSSO Energy (“TUUSSO”), a Seattle-based utility-scale solar developer. The portfolio’s three 6.7-MWdc projects are Greenbacker’s first assets in Washington, a state with ambitious clean energy targets and strong support for renewables.
Located in Kittitas County, the projects—Camas, Penstemon, and Urtica—are all expected to reach commercial operation in 2022. Each have long-term power purchase agreements in place with the same investment-grade utility offtaker. When completed, the renewable power produced by the portfolio will contribute to the state’s goal of achieving carbon-neutral electricity production by 2030 and 100% clean power by 2045.1
“We’re thrilled to enter a new market with three projects that will deliver cheaper clean power to consumers,” said Charles Wheeler, CEO of GREC. “This expansion is the result of a successful long-term collaboration with the solar development experts at TUUSSO. We’ve been involved with the portfolio since the planning stage, and today we’re very pleased to include it in our fleet of renewables projects driving a clean energy future in the state of Washington.”
To help reach its clean energy goals, Washington has a number of supportive solar policies, including several tax exemptions for qualifying solar energy equipmentand a net metering incentive, which allows solar owners to feed any unused energy back into the grid, offsetting their power bills by an equal amount.2
“Greenbacker has been a great partner on these projects, and we’re very pleased to reach this milestone,” said Owen Hurd, CEO of TUUSSO. “These projects would not have been possible without Greenbacker’s unwavering commitment, and the collaborative efforts of local landowners, the Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council, Puget Sound Energy, the Governor’s Office, and other individuals. We look forward to beginning commercial operation in 2022 and hope these projects will encourage more solar in our home state in years to come.”
Greenbacker’s fleet of sustainable infrastructure projects comprises approximately 2.6 GW of generating capacity (including the TUUSSO portfolio and assets that are to be constructed). Since 2016, Greenbacker’s real assets have produced approximately 3.4 million megawatt-hours3 of clean energy, abating 2.4 million metric tons of carbon.4 Today these projects support 3,200 green jobs.5
1 Washington state governor website, https://www.governor.wa.gov/issues/issues/energy-environment.
2 “Washington State Solar Incentives,” https://powernw.com/washington-state-solar-incentives/, April 13, 2021.
3 Data is as of September 30, 2021.
4 Carbon abatement is calculated using the EPA Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator which uses the AVoided Emissions and geneRation Tool (AVERT) US national weighted average CO2 marginal emission rate to convert reductions of kilowatt-hours into avoided units of carbon dioxide emissions. Data is as of September 30, 2021.
5 Green jobs are calculated from the International Renewable Energy Agency‘s measurement that one megawatt of renewable power supports 3.8 jobs. Data is as of September 30, 2021.
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