Ohio siting board approves one of the largest U.S. solar projects

The Ohio Power Siting Board has approved applications filed by Fox Squirrel Solar, LLC and Powell Creek Solar, LLC to construct two solar projects, one of which will rank as one of the largest in the state and the other as one of the largest in the U.S.

The smaller of the two projects is the 150 MW Powell Creek Solar project, which will occupy just under 1,000 acres within an approximately 2,0oo-acre site in Putnam County, south of Toledo.

The project is being developed by Avangrid Renewables, a developer with more than 7,000 MW of owned and controlled wind and solar power facilities in the U.S.

The larger project is the 577 MW Fox Squirrel Solar project, which will occupy approximately 3,444 acres within a 3,766-acre area located in Madison County, west of Columbus. As with Powell Creek, hardware specifics are not yet available, with the only information being that the modules will be ground-mounted.

Fox Squirrel Solar is being developed by EDF Renewables. It is part of a 4.5 GW development pipeline that EDF acquired last autumn from North Carolina-based Geenex Solar. The portfolio of project assets include 20 solar projects in various stages of development. The first projects expect commercial operation in 2023 with other projects to follow.

Fox Squirrel Solar’s capacity is 50 MW greater than the state’s entire installed solar capacity of around 527 MW.  That ties it with OCI’s multisite Alamo project in San Antonio as the 5th-largest American solar project known to pv magazine. Ahead of those are First Solar’s 668 MW Topaz Solar Farm in California; General Electric, NextEra Energy, and Sumitomo of America’s 673 MW Desert Sunlight project in California’s Mojave Desert; LAE American Energy’s 692 MW Misae 2 project under development in Texas; and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners and Arevia Power’s 896 MW Gemini solar project near Las Vegas.