photovoltaic power station
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building ...
located about 25 miles west of
Cedar City, Utah
Cedar City is the largest city in Iron County, Utah, United States. Located south of Salt Lake City, it is north of Las Vegas on Interstate 15 in Utah, Interstate 15. Southern Utah University is located in Cedar City. It is the home of the Ut ...
SunEdison
SunEdison, Inc. (formerly MEMC Electronic Materials) is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high-purity ...
Planning was initiated by the independent renewable energy developer
First Wind
First Wind was an independent renewable energy company. It developed and operated utility-scale power projects in the United States. At its height, First Wind employed more than 220 workers.
Headquartered in Boston, the company developed and ope ...
(founded 2002) which began expanding into photovoltaic energy around 2012. The Enterprise Solar Farm comprises a minority of the 320MW Four Brothers Project, which also includes the three co-located 80 MW Escalante Solar Project units located about 5 miles north of Milford, Utah in Beaver County. The land area for each 80 MW unit ranges from 600 to 700 acres.
First Wind and its extensive portfolio of assets in western Utah were acquired by SunEdison and its TerraForm Power yield co in November 2014. Beginning construction at the time was the 20.2 MW Seven Sisters Project, a dispersed set of ~3 MW facilities throughout Beaver and Iron counties. To finance construction of Four Brothers, SunEdison entered into a joint venture with
Dominion Resources
Dominion Energy, Inc., commonly referred to as Dominion, is an American energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia that supplies electricity in parts of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and supplies natural gas to parts of Ut ...
. The resulting entity, Dominion Renewable Energy, utilized $150 million from SunEdison and $500 million from Dominion to start construction in July 2015. Likewise, the two companies extended their joint venture to construct the 210 MW Three Cedars Project, which consists of three similarly sized facilities dispersed to the west of Cedar City, on about the same timeline.
Four Brothers was built by Mortenson Construction. SunEdison provided about 1.3 million
crystalline silicon
Crystalline silicon or (c-Si) is the crystalline forms of silicon, either polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si, consisting of small crystals), or monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si, a continuous crystal). Crystalline silicon is the dominant semicon ...
solar panels from its team of international suppliers. Work progressed simultaneously at all four sites, employed an estimated 500 workers, and was completed in September 2016. Along with the electricity to power about 90,000 homes, Four Brothers is expected to produce $66 million in property and income taxes for the region over 20 years. The completed facilities are operated and maintained by Swinerton Renewable Energy.
SunEdison filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...
protection on April 21, 2016, but was able to complete the project on time with its receipt of $300 million in bankruptcy debt financing. On September 13, 2016 the company was forced to sell its stake in the completed facilities in a
fire sale
A fire sale is the sale of goods at extremely discounted prices. The term originated in reference to the sale of goods at a heavy discount due to fire damage. It may or may not be defined as a closeout, the final sale of goods to zero inventor ...
.
NRG Energy
NRG Energy, Inc. is an American energy company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. It was formerly the wholesale arm of Northern States Power Company (NSP), which became Xcel Energy, but became independent in 2000. NRG Energy is involved in energ ...
was the successful bidder.
Electricity production
See also
*
Solar power in Utah
The U.S. state of Utah has the solar potential to provide all of the Electricity in the United States, electricity used in the United States.List of power stations in Utah