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Houston-area solar farm to light up Texas with clean power for 15,000 homes

Recurrent Energy's Liberty Solar project near Houston is now operational, adding 134 megawatts of clean energy capacity to power 15,000 homes annually in the MISO market. Photo via recurrentenergy.com

A clean energy developer and operator of solar and energy storage assets has announced the completion and commercial operation of a Houston-area farm that will power 15,000 homes a year.

Recurrent Energy's Liberty Solar project outside of Houston has powered on and will expand solar energy capacity in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator market. Recurrent Energy is an Austin-based a subsidiary of Canadian Solar.

“Projects like Liberty Solar are instrumental to meeting the soaring demand for electricity in Texas,” Executive Director of Texas Solar Power Association Mark Stover says in a news release. "We commend Recurrent Energy for pushing through the development process and working with corporate buyers to deliver new, predictable, clean power to the MISO region of Texas.”

Liberty Solar is in Liberty County, which is about 50 miles northeast of Houston and will be a 134 megawatt solar project. Customers include Autodesk Inc., Biogen Inc., EMD Electronics (the U.S. and Canada electronics business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), and Wayfair Inc.

“Investment in additional renewable capacity on the grid is essential to delivering more sustainable outcomes, and we believe that the Liberty Solar project will help make renewable energy more accessible in North America,” Joe Speicher, chief sustainability officer at Autodesk, adds in tje release. “Autodesk is committed to 100% renewable energy sourcing for our facilities, cloud services and hybrid workforce, and we are committed to leveraging our climate commitments to drive transformational change in our energy generation and deployment.”

Recurrent Energy celebrated the project by welcoming customers at Liberty Solar on October 23 for a guided tour and ribbon cutting ceremony.

“Liberty Solar is a fantastic project that expands Recurrent Energy’s project ownership in MISO,” Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy, says in the release. “We are thrilled to complete this project on time and on budget in support of the renewable energy goals of our customers.”

Last year, Recurrent Energy scored $200 million in financing for the project, including $120 million in financing through Rabobank, Nord LB, and U.S. Bank in the form of construction debt, a letter-of-credit facility, and a term facility. In addition, U.S. Bancorp Impact Finance, a subsidiary of U.S. Bank, is providing $80 million in tax equity.

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A View From HETI

Sage Geosystems' South Texas facility is ready to generate and supply electricity to the grid. Photo courtesy Sage Geosystems

Houston-based Sage Geosystems, a provider of geothermal power, has begun full operations at its South Texas facility for the San Miguel Electric Cooperative.

Sage says the plant was recently “placed in service,” according to a news release. This means it’s fully built and tested, and ready to generate and supply electricity to the grid.

Since selling its first electricity in Q2 of this year, the facility has been operating for more than four months to evaluate aspects like efficiency and water management. Sage relied on its GeoTwin modeling tool to carry out some of the testing.

The testing demonstrates Sage’s proprietary approach to geothermal power “overcomes one of the industry’s most persistent challenges, high water losses in engineered reservoirs, while delivering the consistent performance required to scale next-generation geothermal,” co-founder and CEO Cindy Taff said in the release.

Sage says the South Texas facility will serve as a model for future projects, including one in Nevada. The Nevada facility will use Sage’s proprietary technology to extract geothermal heat from hot dry rock, creating a reliable, affordable source of carbon-free power.

During the testing period, water losses amounted to less than 10 percent. This low rate indicates most water remains in the system, enabling Sage to capture more usable energy, boost power production and improve the project’s finances, the company says.

“Commercial geothermal isn’t just about creating a reservoir. It’s about creating one whose performance can be engineered, predicted, and consistent,” Lev Ring, the company’s co-founder, president and chief technology officer, said in the release.

Since being founded in 2020, Sage has raised $159 million in outside funding. This includes a more than $97 million Series B round co-led by Ormat Technologies and Carbon Direct Capital.

Two years ago, Sage announced a deal with Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to supply up to 150 megawatts of geothermal power to Meta data centers.

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