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

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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 p roject, 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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The project will take over more than 1,000 acres of former farmland about an hour outside of Houston. Photo via Getty Images

Texas company secures $200M for solar project near Houston

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An Austin-based company has scored $200 million in financing for a solar energy project it’s building in Liberty County.

Recurrent Energy’s 134-megawatt Liberty Solar project, about 50 miles northeast of Houston, is scheduled to start operating in 2024. The facility will occupy more than 1,000 acres of former farmland about six miles south of Dayton.

Last year, Recurrent Energy indicated the project represented an investment of $155 million, according to paperwork filed with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

The company lined up $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.

“Liberty Solar is the second project financing that Recurrent Energy has closed in North America this summer, indicating execution on our strategy to retain greater ownership of projects in select markets,” Ismael Guerrero, CEO of Recurrent Energy, says in a news release.

Recurrent Energy announced in May 2023 that it had signed purchase agreements for all of the Liberty County site’s solar power capacity. The Austin company, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, says Liberty Solar will generate enough energy to power an estimated 15,000 homes per year.

The five companies that agreed to buy the solar power are:

San Francisco-based software company Autodesk
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company Biogen
Semiconductor manufacturer EMD Electronics, the North American electronics business of Germany-based pharmaceutical giant Merck
Boston-based home goods retailer Wayfair
An unidentified healthcare company

The Recurrent Energy project will expand solar capacity in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) region, which includes most of Liberty County. The nonprofit organization manages electricity in 15 states and Canada’s Manitoba province.

The solar project is outside the territory of the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which oversees the power grid for about 90 percent of Texas.

Recurrent Energy already operates solar projects in California and Mississippi as well as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.

The Liberty Solar project isn’t the only solar facility being developed in Liberty County.

Spanish renewable energy company X-ELIO said in February 2023 that it had begun construction on a 60-megawatt battery energy storage system in Liberty County that it’s pairing with a 72-megawatt solar energy facility. The two projects are being built on the same site.

The solar energy project, set to start operating in early 2024, will support ERCOT’s energy needs in the Houston area. X-ELIO says the project represents an investment of more than $130 million.

Power generated by the facility will be sold to BASF, a chemical conglomerate based in Florham Park, New Jersey. Any surplus energy will be stored by the battery system. BASF maintains its regional petrochemical headquarters in Houston and a chemical manufacturing plant in Pasadena.

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Report shows geoscientists earn largest salary premium in Texas

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A move to Texas bolsters earnings for some, and a new SmartAsset study has revealed the top professions where the median annual earnings in the Lone Star State exceed the national median.

The report, "When it Pays to Work in Texas — and When It Doesn’t," published in April, analyzed over 700 occupations to determine which have the biggest "Texas premium" — meaning jobs where the price-adjusted median annual pay in Texas most exceeds the national median for the same occupation — and which jobs have the biggest “Texas penalty,” where the statewide median annual pay falls furthest below the national median. Salaries were sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and adjusted for regional price parity.

According to the report's findings, geoscientists have the biggest "Texas premium" and make a $159,903 median annual salary. Texas' salary for geoscientists is 61 percent higher than the national median for the same position (after adjusting for regional price parity).

"Texas’s large petroleum industry helps explain why employers in the state retain so many geoscientists," the report's author wrote. "In fact, the Lone Star State is home to more geoscientists than any other state except California."

There are more than 3,600 geoscientists working in Texas, SmartAsset said.

These are the remaining top 10 occupations with the biggest "Texas premiums" (salaries are price-adjusted):

No. 2 – Commercial pilots: $167,727 median Texas earnings; 37 percent higher than the national median
No. 3 – Sailors: $67,614 median Texas earnings; 36 percent higher than the national median
No. 4 – Aircraft structure assemblers: $83,519 median Texas earnings; 35 percent higher than the national median
No. 5 – Ship captains: $108,905 median Texas earnings; 27 percent higher than the national median
No. 6 – Nursing instructors (postsecondary): $100,484 median Texas earnings; 26 percent higher than the national median
No. 7 – Tax preparers: $63,321 median Texas earnings; 25 percent higher than the national median
No. 8 – Chemists: $104,241 median Texas earnings; 24 percent higher than the national median
No. 9 – Health instructors (postsecondary): $128,680 median Texas earnings; 22 percent higher than the national median
No. 10 – Engineering instructors (postsecondary): $129,030 median Texas earnings; 22 percent higher than the national median

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Solar manufacturer expands Houston footprint with new 4 GW factory

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Houston-based SEG Solar plans to open a new 4-gigawatt solar module manufacturing facility in Cypress.

The facility represents more than a $200 million investment and will raise SEG's total annual U.S. module production capacity to approximately 6 gigawatts, according to a new release. The expansion is part of SEG’s long-term goal of becoming one of the largest 100 percent U.S.-owned module manufacturers.

The new 500,000-square-foot facility will be located on Telge Road and is expected to create 800 new jobs, according to reports.

“This new facility marks an important milestone for SEG,” Timothy Johnson, VP of operations, said in the release. “It will further strengthen our U.S. manufacturing capabilities while supporting ongoing technology innovation. The plant is designed with the flexibility to integrate next-generation technologies, including (heterojunction solar technology) as the industry evolves.”

Commercial operations at the new facility are expected to commence in Q3 2026.

SEG is also developing a 5-gigawatt ingot and wafer manufacturing facility in Indonesia. Construction on the facility is expected to begin in Q2 2026.

In 2024, SEG Solar opened a new $60 million, 250,000-square-foot facility in Houston to house its production workshops, raw material warehouses, administrative offices, finished goods warehouses and supporting infrastructure. Read more here.

Fervo Energy bumps up IPO target to $1.82B

IPO update

Houston-based geothermal power company Fervo Energy is now eyeing an IPO that would raise $1.75 billion to $1.82 billion, up from the previous target of $1.33 billion.

In paperwork filed Monday, May 11 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Fervo says it plans to sell 70 million shares of Class A common stock at $25 to $26 per share.

In addition, Fervo expects to grant underwriters 30-day options to buy up to 8.33 million additional shares of Class A common stock. This could raise nearly $200 million.

When it announced the IPO on May 4, Fervo aimed to sell 55.56 million shares at $21 to $24 per share, which would have raised $1.17 billion to $1.33 billion. The initial valuation target was $6.5 billion.

A date for the IPO hasn’t been scheduled. Fervo’s stock will be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol FRVO.

Fervo, founded in 2017, has attracted about $1.5 billion in funding from investors such as Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Google, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Devon Energy (which is moving its headquarters to Houston), Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, CalSTRS, Liberty Mutual Investments, AllianceBernstein, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank.

Fervo’s marquee project is Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah, the world’s largest EGS (enhanced geothermal system) project. The first phase will deliver 100 megawatts of baseload clean power, with the second phase adding another 400 megawatts. The site can accommodate 2 gigawatts of geothermal energy. Fervo holds more than 595,000 leased acres for potential expansion.

Cape Station has secured power purchase agreements for the entire 500-megawatt capacity. Customers include Houston-based Shell Energy North America and Southern California Edison.

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