DE Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI), a company that purchases, owns and manages long-term contracted renewable energy assets in North America, says the AC Cove Mountain 180 MW solar projects in Iron County, Utah are now commercial .
"The DESRI team is excited to start commercial operations at our Cove Mountain facilities, which have been completed through our strong partnerships with PacifiCorp, Facebook and First Solar," said David Zwillinger, CEO of DESRI. "These are the first DESRI renewable energy projects in Utah to reach commercial operations and represent an important milestone in our mission to expand clean energy production in the state."
Cove Mountain and Cove Mountain 2 have signed long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with PacifiCorp on behalf of Facebook that will provide Facebook's data center operations with new solar resources. Swinerton Renewable Energy built the projects.
Cove Mountain and Cove Mountain 2 are two of the nine DESRI projects currently operational, under construction or signed PPAs in Utah. DESRI's other projects in Utah include Hunter Solar, which started operations this year, and Sigurd Solar, which was mechanically completed in March.
The acquisition and construction of the Cove Mountain projects were funded by a consortium of lenders including HSBC as coordinating lead arranger, CIBC, the National Bank of Canada, National Cooperative Services Corp. and the Fifth Third Bank. Wells Fargo provided tax credits for the projects.
PhotÖ by Rennett Stowe is licensed under CC BY 2.0