Iberdrola has connected its new Tower Solar plant to the grid in Oregon (USA) to meet the growing demand from large customers

Iberdrola, through its subsidiary Avangrid, has connected its new Tower Solar photovoltaic plant to the regional electricity grid in Morrow County, Oregon (United States). The company expects the plant to enter commercial operation this summer, once the final phases of the project have been completed, to help meet the growing energy demand of large customers.

With a capacity of 166 MWdc (120 MWac), the facility incorporates more than 250,000 solar panels. The energy generated will be fed into the Portland General Electric (PGE) grid and will be used primarily to meet the demand of large municipal, commercial and industrial consumers, in a context marked by strong growth in electricity demand. For example, the new renewable capacity at Tower Solar will support the operations in the region of QTS (Quality Technology Services), one of the leading US providers of digital infrastructure and data centres.

In this regard, the plant will supply electricity to the PGE grid through the Green Future Impact (GFI) programme, which enables large consumers to access clean energy to advance their decarbonisation goals. This model drives the development of new renewable capacity directly linked to these customers’ demand, without passing on additional costs to other users of the system.

The project responds to the sustained growth in electricity demand in the United States, particularly in the north-west of the country. In this context, the Group is reinforcing its commitment to energy solutions that combine competitiveness, security of supply, local generation, direct support for economic and industrial growth, and community development.

Through Avangrid, the Iberdrola Group has more than 11,000 MW of installed capacity in the United States, spread across nearly 100 plants in 25 states.