Enlight Renewable Energy Secures Financing for Atrisco Solar and Energy Storage Project - SolarQuarter
Enlight Renewable Energy Secures Financing for Atrisco Solar and Energy Storage Project - SolarQuarter
Enlight Renewable Energy Ltd. announced the financial close for the Energy Storage portion of its flagship Atrisco Solar and Energy Storage project, located outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. This milestone completes the financing and tax equity arrangements for the entire Atrisco project, following the financial close of the Atrisco Solar project in December 2023.
The Atrisco complex, which includes 364 MW of solar generation capacity and 1.2 GWh of battery storage, was constructed at a cost of $827 million. The financing includes $290 million of term debt and $420 million of tax equity, covering 86% of the total cost, with Enlight’s long-term equity investment amounting to $117 million (14% of the total cost). The project, the largest undertaken by the Company to date, is now in the commissioning phase and is expected to reach full COD (Commercial Operation Date) later this year.
The Atrisco Solar project itself was financed by a consortium of leading global banks led by HSBC, with tax equity provided by Bank of America. The project’s tax equity financing qualified for the Energy Community IRA adder due to a brownfield addition to the project.
Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.