Exus Renewables North America, an independent developer and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects, secured $312 million in financing for its TAG project, a 140 MW solar and 50 MW / 200 MWh battery storage facility in Sandoval County, New Mexico.
The project integrates 313,000 Boviet bifacial solar modules on Array Technologies’ OmniTrack single axis tracking system, Brian Reindl, Exux VP of development told pv magazine USA. The energy storage system uses Tesla Megapacks.
Reindl noted that one reason the company chose the OmniTrack system is because it allows the project to “optimize grading and earthwork, greatly reducing environmental impact on the project site”.
Construction of the TAG project began in late 2023 and is scheduled for completion in Q2 2025. Energy from the project, which is spread over 1,100 acres of previously undeveloped land just west of Albuquerque, will be purchased by Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) in partnership with Meta to support the Meta data center in Los Lunas. Meta will own the renewable energy credits, Reindl said.
Exus partnered with local Albuquerque expertise for several aspects of this project. Gridworks, for example, a local Albuquerque engineering and construction contractor, is the primary EPC for both the solar and battery components of the project.
The project currently supports more than 250 temporary construction jobs and will create full-time operations and maintenance jobs upon completion. The project is expected to contribute more than $17 million to Sandoval County and local school districts over the next 30 years.
Reindl said that public hearings were held with Sandoval County in advance of project construction, and no opposition was expressed at that time, adding that, “Sandoval county has been a valuable partner to Exus on TAG as well as other utility scale PV projects in the region.” He noted that “the sparsely vegetated high desert/scrubland and proximity to the Albuquerque load center on PNM’s system made this site an excellent candidate for a low impact utility scale solar-plus-storage facility.”
The financing package includes construction and term debt, led by Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank and ING Americas, with a significant equity investment from Exus, the company reports. Exus Renewables was represented by Norton Rose Fulbright lawyers.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.