Be part of every day info updates from CleanTechnica on e mail. Or observe us on Google Data!

Alarms have been sounded over the way in which ahead for renewable energy enchancment in Oklahoma, the place a movement is afoot to impose an entire ban on new wind and photo voltaic power initiatives all via the state. Favor it or not, though, Oklahoma has already emerged as a transparent energy ambassador for the rest of the US, a job that is beginning to heat up in new directions.

Further Renewable Energy For Oklahoma

Oklahoma already has one foot firmly inside the renewable energy enterprise. The state quickly turned a primary hotspot for wind enchancment inside the early 2000s and it nonetheless ranks correct up there at #3 in a 50-state score of put in wind functionality, at 12,648 megawatts as of ultimate April. Amongst forthcoming initiatives is a 241-megawatt wind farm beneath the umbrella of the company RWE. The utility SWEPCO will be shifting forward with improvement of a 598-megawatt mission, to be operational by the highest of this yr.

Take wind out of the state’s renewable energy sails, though, and the picture dims. The US Photograph voltaic Energy Commerce Affiliation locations Oklahoma down at #40 for photograph voltaic enchancment, with solely a hair over 376 megawatts’ value of put in functionality as of Q3 2024.

Nonetheless, 376 megawatts is a significant leap up from just one yr earlier, when the state had solely 46 megawatts beneath its belt. SEIA initiatives that the Oklahoma photograph voltaic enterprise will proceed to experience outsized improvement inside the near time interval, with the state shifting as a lot as #30 over the next 5 years.

Renewable Energy & Data Services

One difficulty driving the sharp upswing in Oklahoma’s photograph voltaic profile is the knowledge center improve. Throughout the latest enchancment, earlier this week the Texas-based company Leeward Renewable Energy recapped its plans to develop better than 700 megawatts’ value of photograph voltaic energy functionality from three new photograph voltaic farms, a couple of of which is already spoken for by Google by future power purchases.

One mission alone will better than double the state’s put in photograph voltaic functionality just about in a single day, consisting of  a three-array portfolio totaling 372 megawatts in Mayes County. All three are positioned near a Google data center in Pryor. Two completely different initiatives positioned inside the southern part of the state will ship the general to 724 megawatts (AC).

LRE expects the initiatives to provide grid-wide benefits to ratepayers in Oklahoma, not merely Google, partly by a transmission collaboration with the Grand River Dam Authority.

“The addition of better than 700 MWac of newest photograph voltaic sources at rigorously chosen locations will permit further surroundings pleasant utilization of the regional transmission neighborhood and enhance grid resilience whereas moreover immediately enabling purchaser enlargement,” LRE well-known in a press assertion earlier this week.

“In a time of rising electrical power demand to power our complete monetary system, these photograph voltaic initiatives current a extremely tangible and precise decision,” they added, which appears like a not-so-subtle poke on the opponents for data center energy procurement. Nuclear advocates, as an illustration, have been attempting to horn in on the knowledge center movement, together with coal and gasoline stakeholders.

Renewable Energy & The Vitality Of Vitality Purchase Agreements

For these of you new to the topic, power purchase agreements have been supporting the renewable energy improve inside the US as a result of the early 2000s.  They’d been permitted by the Energy Protection Act of 2005, enabling builders to lock in tax benefits and financial commitments from future off-takers for model spanking new energy initiatives sooner than improvement begins.

As a corollary, power purchase agreements moreover permit energy customers to acquire renewable energy, with out having to host a wind or photograph voltaic mission on their very personal property, and with out having to stake an up-front funding.

Throughout the preliminary years following the authorization of power purchase agreements, builders and off-takers wanted to re-invent the wheel with each transaction. This cumbersome and expensive course of shortly gave method to new applications that make PPA’s further accessible to every occasions. Once more in 2018, as an illustration, CleanTechnica took pay attention to an affect purchase settlement system developed by the startup LevelTen Energy, aimed towards aggregating demand for small scale off-takers.

Regardless {that a} pink scorching movement in the direction of renewable energy has been kicking up in two dozen or so states, LevelTen has been awfully busy since then, they usually’re about to get busier.

In March of 2023, LevelTen and Google launched a model new partnership aimed towards slashing 80% of the time spent on executing PPAs. “Public officers in extra than 20 states have been kicking up a each day haboob over the evils of ‘woke capital,’ by which they indicate to thwart clear energy funding,” CleanTechnica reported. “Within the meantime, Google has merely sneaked correct up and pulled the rug out from beneath them.”

You presumably can say that when extra. Google’s new power purchase agreements with LRE in Oklahoma had been executed beneath  LevelTen Energy’s new “Accelerated Course of” (LEAP for temporary), developed by LevelTen and Google.

“These power purchase agreements show how our scalable procurement methodology is remodeling the acquisition of unpolluted energy and accelerating the occasion of carbon-free energy sources,” Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s Worldwide Head of Data Center Energy, emphasizes.

Oklahoma Accelerates The Energy Transition All Over The USA

Between its wind enterprise and its fossil energy industries, Oklahoma has already staked out a mammoth-sized declare on US energy manufacturing, storage, and transportation. As an early showcase for the LEAP power purchase collaboration, the state is now onto the next stage, demonstrating that renewable energy can receive the kind of speedy turnaround wished to assist surging improvement in electrical power demand whereas supporting grid-wide reliability enhancements.

The Grand River Dam Authority, for one, is all for it. “Google’s assist for these photograph voltaic initiatives in Oklahoma is a testament to their dedication to help meet the state’s rising energy desires with protected, sustainable choices.” explains GRDA EVP John Wiscaver.

“Google is a invaluable companion to GRDA, and we look forward to serving to them meet their future power desires whereas persevering with to foster monetary improvement inside the GRDA communities of Northeast Oklahoma,” Wiscaver added.

Within the meantime, state officers are moreover celebrating Oklahoma’s new perform as a centerpiece of the US photograph voltaic enterprise present chain. Last summer season season, the state nailed down an monetary enchancment deal for a model new $620 million, 5-gigawatt silicon ingot and photograph voltaic wafer manufacturing facility. Located at Tulsa Worldwide Airport, the model new manufacturing facility is one different occasion of speedy turnaround for renewable energy initiatives.

“Manufacturing is anticipated to come back again on-line in 2026, making the Oklahoma facility among the many many first within the USA to provide high-performing silicon ingots and wafers, in the meanwhile an important bottleneck in reaching a very residence photograph voltaic present chain,” enthused the Oklahoma Division of Aeronautics and Aerospace in a press assertion.

In opposition to this backdrop, the knowledge group HeatMap has been following actions on the state capitol, the place activists have been rallying assist for a statewide ban on renewable energy enchancment. HeatMap notes that wind and photograph voltaic stakeholders shouldn’t the one targets. Oklahoma’s potential perform as an A-list inexperienced hydrogen producer can be in jeopardy, and that draws the extremely efficient fertilizer enterprise into the street of hearth.

Take the primary fertilizer company CF Industries. CF already has a foot inside the inexperienced hydrogen door by its Donaldson facility in Louisiana, and it has proposed a inexperienced ammonia mission for Oklahoma, too. The proposal entails 450 megawatts’ value of renewable energy to provide inexperienced hydrogen (ammonia consists of three parts hydrogen, one half nitrogen).

The CF plan hit a tempo bump remaining yr when the Energy Division declined to include the mission for funding beneath the “Regional Clear Hydrogen Hubs” program, nevertheless remaining spring Oklahoma officers indicated that new state legal guidelines may help fill the outlet, so maintain tuned for further on that.

Adjust to me by the use of LinkTree, or @tinamcasey on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

{Photograph} (cropped): The photo voltaic has however to set on wind and photograph voltaic enchancment in Oklahoma, no matter looming issues over a statewide ban (courtesy of Leeward Renewable Energy).