OYA begins work on 140 MW New York community solar

OYA Solar has begun construction on a five-project portfolio of community solar installations, all located in Upstate New York.

Specifically, the projects will be constructed in Jefferson, Livingston, Onondaga, and Oswego Counties, all of which border Lake Ontario.

These five projects, totaling 25 MW in capacity bring OYA’s active New York construction pipeline to six total projects, joining the 7 MW community solar project being constructed on State Route 122A in Franklin County, already under construction.

The effort will not stop with these six projects, however, as OYA said it expects to build another 140 MW of community solar projects in New York by the end 2022.

OYA has been making a significant community solar development push in New York as of late, and, in June, the company closed on an exclusive co-development agreement with Omni Navitas to develop, construct, and own 600 MW of community solar projects across the Northeast U.S., at least 240 MW of which will be located in New York.

This builds on OYA’s already substantial North American development pipeline which, prior to the closing of this deal, sat at 2 GW of community and utility-scale solar.

According to OYA, its upcoming community solar pipeline represents roughly 12% of the New York’s entire community solar development pipeline. That is a sizeable share of total development for any state, and is especially significant considering New York is the state that installed 549 MW of community solar capacity in 2020, the most in the nation.

Community solar represents more than 90% of the state’s 2.7 GW two-year pipeline of projects under development that have been awarded NY-Sun incentives, comprising more than 800 projects.