Erthos signs agreement for more than 100MW of earth-based solar in Texas

Erthos, Inc., the company that designed Earth Mount Solar, utility-scale solar that sits right on the ground, today announced the signing of an agreement with Industrial Sun LLC for a new utility-scale solar project of more than 100 MWdc in Texas.

Industrial Sun, a renewable energy and storage developer based in Austin, TX, specializes in serving high energy demand customers who need the energy for refineries, pumping and compression stations, manufacturing and/or processing plants, terminals, and data centers. The Industrial Sun team members have collectively delivered more than 6,000 MWac of power projects throughout the United States, with a heavy concentration in the ERCOT market.

The project has an expected interconnect capacity of 100 MWac, which will be installed in an area with little land suitable for development. The Erthos design is meant for such areas, as the company reports that its installations typically require less than 2.5 acres per MWac, compared to the usual 5 to 6 acres required by conventionally mounted solar.

What makes earth mount solar PV unique is that the solar arrays are mounted directly on the earth with no mounts or trackers below. While the design is unusual, the company announced the closing of a $17.5 million Series B funding round in March to scale up production. This follows a $7.4 million Series A in 2019, which launched the company and helped it finalize the earth-mount system architecture. It also funded the development of the autonomous cleaning robot, which drives over the surface of the panels to clean them, which is necessitated by having the solar modules so close to the ground.

“Erthos technology allows us to maximize our project capacity, particularly in those areas where our projects are land-constrained. Erthos is a very welcome solution for our business, and for any developer needing to up-size the capacity of their projects,” said Wade Gungoll, Managing Director of Industrial Sun.

The agreement with Industrial Sun is the company’s largest contract to date and follows a recent announcement by Erthos of a signed memorandum of understanding for a separate 107 MWdc project, as well as 14 MWdc of additional signed contracts.

“There’s no question that our business is continuing to accelerate,” said Charles Pimentel, chief commercial officer of Erthos. “That’s in large part because of our ability to deliver improved energy density, higher wind ratings, and short build times – and to do so at a lower cost.”