Silicon Ranch constructs 106-MW solar project for Georgia utility

• Green Power EMC, the renewable energy provider for 38 Georgia Electric Membership Corporations, and also Silicon Ranch, a national renewable energy company, commemorated the completion of the 106-MWAC Clay Solar Project in Bluffton, Georgia. The energy generated by the Clay Solar Project is shared by 30 EMCs from across the state as well as will certainly generate enough dependable to serve greater than 17,000 EMC households each year.

The Clay Solar Project is the nine utility-scale solar project to reach functional condition for Green Power EMC as well as Silicon Ranch. Jointly, the partners' portfolio generates greater than 550 MWAC of energy, sufficient to help power more than 90,000 EMC households yearly. In 2022, the companions revealed an additional collaboration to develop 3 more projects, totaling an additional 252 MWAC, online by the end of 2024. Silicon Ranch has than 2 GW of solar throughout Georgia.

Silicon Ranch picked IEA as the EPC contractor, which worked with greater than 400 craft workers to construct the project, with choice provided to the regional labor pool and also the armed forces veteran community.

" Silicon Ranch's decision to invest more than $100 million in Clay County was just one of one of the most significant occasions we have actually had in decades, as well as we are thrilled with the efficient collaboration they have actually developed with Green Power EMC and also our own White Oak Pastures," claimed Trey Anderson, Clay County Development Authority chairman. "In the years ahead, the Clay Solar project will certainly add numerous dollars in new tax obligation profits to support regional facilities, our school area, and also our development authority. Most significantly, Silicon Ranch is additional investing in our future by supplying scholarships for the trainees of the Clay County School System."

Green Power EMC President Jeff Pratt stated the Clay County project marks the largest collective solar project brought online by Georgia's electrical cooperatives.

" Georgia's EMCs continue to expand their renewable energy portfolio with low-cost solar power projects that deliver value to their participants as well as the rural communities the centers lie in," Pratt said. "By collaborating, EMCs are assisting to meet the expanding renewable energy demands of Georgia's homes as well as services, while supporting economic development in several of the state's most country communities."

The Clay Solar Project formally got to commercial procedure in December 2022.

When the project in Clay County was first revealed in 2018, White Oak Pastures owner Will certainly Harris welcomed Silicon Ranch to check out Bluffton. Harris presented Silicon Ranch leadership to the approaches of planned livestock grazing and also regenerative agricultural techniques that his family had actually been deploying at White Oak Pastures for greater than twenty years. The result was a new partnership and also a cutting-edge model for the solar market that Silicon Ranch calls Regenerative Energy, its alternative strategy to project style, building as well as land management, that is currently deployed throughout hundreds of acres it possesses as well as manages throughout the nation.

" There are no losers in this bargain," Harris said. "The Silicon Ranch land will certainly continue to be pastoral. Our rural community obtains much-needed jobs, as well as a new renewable energy project to be pleased with. With the help of our pre-seeding of the site, Green Power EMC and also Silicon Ranch will withdraw a lot more soil carbon and develop a record of the environmental impact for others to repeat. In the future, customers can participate by buying the pasture-raised meats that will certainly be foraged by Silicon Ranch on our website."

Additionally, Silicon Ranch developed and also funded a gopher tortoise haven in collaboration with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, moving gopher tortoises to additional land that Silicon Ranch has in Clay County.