Iris Solar and the upcoming St. James Solar facility will provide 70 MW of clean energy for 13,000 homes per year.
Entergy New Orleans will purchase power from the 50 MW Iris Solar Facility in Washington Parish, Louisiana from the project’s developer, D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments. The Louisiana investor-owned utility company announced the purchase of power generated from the solar facility one week after the project commenced commercial operations on November 1.
Entergy recently signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to purchase power from the solar facility which was developed, engineered and constructed by D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) on a 492-acre tract of land in Franklinton, Louisiana, using 187,000 solar panels.
“DESRI was thrilled to commission the Iris Solar facility and to deliver this project’s new renewable energy to Entergy’s customers,” said David Zwillinger, CEO of DESRI. “Our team considers Entergy a close partner and we look forward to bringing more solar projects online for them in the next few years.”
Construction began in October 2020 for Iris Solar and St. James Solar, located in Vacherie, Louisiana, while both projects combined are expected to provide enough power for 13,000 homes per year.
DESRI manages a portfolio of 67 utility-scale solar, wind and energy storage projects in 25 states with 6.31 GW of total power capacity across various development stages. In January the company filed an S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission to list itself on the Nasdaq exchange.
Entergy operates five utilities which collectively own 908 MW of ground-mounted and rooftop solar assets in four states, while the utilities purchase an additional 812 MW of solar PPA contracts from various IPPs around the southeast region. The utility has a 7 GW development pipeline of solar and wind farms planned for construction in the MISO and Southwest Power Pool region from 2023 – 2027.
Iris Solar is the second solar project Entergy New Orleans is purchasing power from out of facilities with 96.5 MW of aggregate power capacity in the state of Louisiana. Its third solar PPA project, St. James Solar, is a 20 MW utility-scale project in Vacherie, Louisiana scheduled for completion by the end of this year.
According to SEIA, including Iris Solar about 260.9 MW of total solar installations have been deployed in Louisiana to date, and through Q2 22 the state employed 3,210 in the solar market.
