TotalEnergies powers up its largest utility-scale solar farms in Texas

ready to shine

TotalEnergies has started up two new solar farms in Texas. Photo by Red Zeppelin/Pexels

TotalEnergies has begun the commercial operations of two utility-scale solar farms with integrated battery storage located in southeast Texas.

The two farms are located in Cottonwood and Danish Fields, which is TotalEnergies’ largest solar farm in the United States.

“The start-ups of Danish Fields and Cottonwood in the fast-growing ERCOT market showcase TotalEnergies’ ability to deliver competitive renewable electricity to support our clients’ decarbonization goals, as well as our own,” Olivier Jouny, senior vice president of renewables at TotalEnergies, says in a news release.

The new projects have a combined capacity of 1.2 gigawatts. They are part of a portfolio of renewable assets totaling 4 gigawatts in operation or under construction currently in Texas. Danish Fields holds a capacity of 720 megawatts peak and 1.4 million ground-mounted photovoltaic panels.

Cottonwood, with a capacity of 455 megawatts peak featuring over 847,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels, will also feature 225 megawatt hours of battery storage supplied by Saft. This is scheduled for commissioning in 2025. The electricity production is contracted under long-term PPAs indexed to “merchant prices through an upside-sharing mechanism with LyondellBasell and Saint-Gobain,” per thenews release. The deal is to help support the companies’ decarbonization efforts.

Seventy percent of Danish’s solar capacity has been contracted through long-term Corporate Power Purchase Agreements signed with Saint-Gobain, which feature an upside sharing mechanism indexed on merchant price. The other 30 percent is intended to support the decarbonization of TotalEnergies’ industrial plants in the Gulf Coast region. The projects will cover the electricity consumption of TotalEnergies’ industrial sites in Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas, and Carville in Louisiana, which include Myrtle Solar that was commissioned in 2023 and the under-construction Hill 1 solar farm.

In addition to the solar farms, TotalEnergies has also added 1.5 gigawatt of flexible power production capacity with three gas-fired power plants they acquired in Texas.

“Thanks to these projects, we are delighted to take another step in delivering our strategy across the entire value chain, from power generation to customer delivery, in order to achieve our profitability target of 12 (percent return on average capital employed) in our Integrated Power business,” Jouny adds in the release.

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Talos Energy announced that it has entered into an agreement for the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary Talos Low Carbon Solutions to TotalEnergies. Photo via Getty Images

Talos Energy sells off low carbon arm to TotalEnergies in $148M deal

M&A moves

A Houston-based company is divesting its low-carbon subsidiary to TotalEnergies, which has its United States headquarters in Houston.

Talos Energy announced that it has entered into an agreement for the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary Talos Low Carbon Solutions LLC to TotalEnergies. The deal is for a purchase price of $125 million plus customary reimbursements, adjustments and retention of cash, which totals approximately $148 million.

According to a news release, Talos plans to use the proceeds from the sale to repay borrowings under its credit facility and for general corporate purposes. The sale includes Talos's entire carbon capture and sequestration business, which includes its three projects along the U.S. Gulf Coast with Bayou Bend CCS, Harvest Bend CCS, and Coastal Bend CCS.

There is an opportunity for additional future cash payments upon achievement of certain milestones at the Harvest Bend or Coastal Bend projects for Talos. More payments can be obtained also upon a sale of the aforementioned projects by TotalEnergies.

"Since TLCS's inception, we have successfully applied our energy expertise as an early mover aimed at developing decarbonization solutions along the U.S. Gulf Coast,” Talos President and CEO Timothy S. Duncan says in a news release. ”Strong market interest during our capital raise provided the strategic option to fully monetize the business to TotalEnergies, an established global leader in CCS development."

Talos Executive Vice President, Low Carbon Strategy and Chief Sustainability Officer Robin Fielder will continue to serve in her role for a transition period before leaving Talos.

"Robin and our entire CCS team did an outstanding job crystallizing value for Talos shareholders for a strong financial return," Duncan continues. "The transaction will further enable Talos to prioritize cash flow generation and optimal capital allocation in our core Upstream business. We are also continuing to explore business development and strategic M&A opportunities."

TotalEnergies is active in the Houston energy transition ecosystem and recently signed on as a partner at Greentown Houston. Last fall, the company also started commercial operations of its new solar farm, Myrtle Solar, just south of Houston.

TotalEnergies' new solar farm outside of Houston is the size of 1,800 football fields. Photo via totalenergies.com

Global energy company opens solar farm outside of Houston

up & running

A global energy corporation has a new solar farm online and operating just outside of Houston.

TotalEnergies (NYSE: TTE) has started commercial operations of its new solar farm, Myrtle Solar, just south of Houston. The farm has a capacity of 380 megawatts peak of solar production and 225 MWh of co-located batteries. Spread across the space — which is about the size of 1,800 football fields — are 705,000 solar panels producing enough electricity to power 70,000 homes.

Seventy percent of the power generated will be sourced for TotalEnergies' industrial plants in the U.S. Gulf Coast region, and the remaining 30 percent will be used by Kilroy Realty, a publicly traded real estate company, per a 15-year corporate power purchase agreement.

“We are very proud to start up Myrtle, TotalEnergies’ largest-to-date operated utility-scale solar farm with storage in the United States. This startup is another milestone in achieving our goal to build an integrated and profitable position in Texas, where ERCOT is the main electrical grid operator," Vincent Stoquart, senior vice president of renewables at TotalEnergies, says in the release. "Besides, the project will enable the Company to cover the power needs of some of its biggest U.S. industrial sites with electricity from a renewable source."

The farm is part of the company’s Go Green Project that is hoping to enable the company to cover its power needs by 2025, as well as curtail the Scope 1+2 emissions of its industrial sites in the Gulf Coast area, including Port Arthur and La Porte in Texas and Carville, Louisiana.

“Given the advantages that IRA tax exemptions are generating, we will continue to actively develop our 25 GW portfolio of projects in operation or development in the United States, to contribute to the Company’s global power generation target of more than 100 TWh by 2030,” Stoquart continues.

Myrtle Solar is also equipped with 114 high-tech Energy Storage Systems with a total capacity of 225 MWh. The technology was provided by TotalEnergies' affiliate Saft.

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Texas House Democrats urge Trump administration to restore $250M solar grant

solar grants

Eight Democratic members of the U.S. House from Texas, including two from Houston, are calling on the Trump administration to restore a nearly $250 million solar energy grant for Texas that’s being slashed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a letter to Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, and Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the House members urged the two officials to reinstate the nearly $250 million grant, which was awarded to Texas under the $7 billion Biden-era Solar for All program. The Texas grant was designed to assist 28,000 low-income households in installing solar panels, aiming to reduce their energy bills.

“This administration has improperly withheld billions in congressionally appropriated funding that was intended to benefit everyday Americans,” the letter stated.

The letter claimed that numerous court rulings have determined the EPA cannot repeal already allocated funding.

“Congress made a commitment to families, small businesses, and communities across this country to lower their utility bills and reduce harmful pollution through investments in clean energy. The Solar for All program was part of that commitment, and the EPA’s actions to rescind this funding effectively undermine that congressional intent,” the House members wrote.

The six House members who signed the letter are:

U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Houston
U.S. Rep. Al Green of Houston
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas
U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin
U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson of Dallas
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth

The nearly $250 million grant was awarded last year to the Harris County-led Texas Solar for All Coalition.

In a post on the X social media platform, Zeldin said the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” killed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which would have financed the $7 billion Solar for All program.

“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” Zeldin said.

Big developments for Fervo, Hertha, Oxy, and more energy news to know

Trending Topics

Editor's note: There have been major developments in the local energy transition sector in September, including big funding for Hertha Metals, a powerful partnership for Fervo, and a launch on the horizon for Oxy. Below are the five most-read EnergyCaptialHTX stories from September 1-14.

1. Houston-area sustainable steel company emerges from stealth with $17M in VC funding

U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, a Magnolia Republican, and Hertha Metals founder and CEO Laureen Meroueh toured Hertha’s Conroe plant in August. Photo courtesy Hertha Metals/Business Wire.

Conroe-based Hertha Metals, a producer of substantial steel, has hauled in more than $17 million in venture capital from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Pear VC, Clean Energy Ventures and other investors. The money has been put toward the construction and the launch of its 1-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant in Conroe, where its breakthrough in steelmaking has been undergoing tests. The company uses a single-step process that it claims is cheaper, more energy-efficient and equally as scalable as conventional steelmaking methods. The plant is fueled by natural gas or hydrogen. Continue reading.

2. Fervo Energy selects Baker Hughes to supply geothermal tech for power plants

Fervo Energy has tapped Baker Hughes to supply technology to five power plants at Cape Station, its flagship geothermal power generation project in Utah. Photo courtesy Fervo Energy.

Houston-based geothermal energy startup Fervo Energy has tapped Houston-based energy technology company Baker Hughes to supply geothermal equipment for five Fervo power plants in Utah. The equipment will be installed at Fervo’s Cape Station geothermal power project near Milford, Utah. The project’s five second-phase, 60-megawatt plants will generate about 400 megawatts of clean energy for the grid. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Continue reading.

3. Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to launch this year

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said the company's Stratos DAC project is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year. Photo via 1pointfive.com

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area. Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year. Continue reading.

4. Houston foundation doles out $700K for Texas chemical research

The Welch Foundation has awarded funding through two of its newest grant programs. Photo via Getty Images.

Houston-based The Welch Foundation has issued $700,000 in additional funding to support chemical research through two of its newest grant programs. The foundation has named the recipients of its Welch eXperimental (WelchX) Collaboration Retreat and Pilot Grants and the Welch Postdoctoral Fellows of the Life Sciences Research Foundation Grants. The WelchX grants were awarded to teams of two Texas researchers who presented "innovative and collaborative ideas" addressing challenges in the clean energy space, according to the foundation. Continue reading.

5. 10+ Houston energy transition events to attend in September 2025

The 22nd annual Energy Tech Venture Forum takes place September 18. Photo courtesy of Rice

September is full of must-attend energy transition events. Get the details on the top energy happenings in September 2025, and begin registering today (some of the largest events happen this week). Continue reading.

Energy Tech Nexus announces international startups to pitch at Pilotathon

Ready, Set, Pitch

Energy Tech Nexus will host its Pilotathon and Showcase as part of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week next Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring insightful talks from industry leaders and pitches from an international group of companies in the clean energy space.

This year's event will center around the theme "Energy Access and Resilience." Attendees will hear pitches from nine Pilotathon pitch companies, as well as the 14 companies that were named to Energy Tech Nexus' COPILOT accelerator earlier this year.

COPILOT partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatetech sectors. The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory backs the COPILOT accelerator, where companies are tasked with developing pilot projects for their innovations.

The nine Pilotathon pitch companies include:

Ontario-based AlumaPower, which has developed a breakthrough technology that converts the aluminum-air battery into a "galvanic generator," a long-duration energy source that runs on aluminum as a fuel
Calgary-based BioOilSolv, a chemical manufacturing company that has developed cutting-edge biomass-derived solvents
Atlanta-based Cultiv8 Fuels, which creates high-quality renewable fuel products derived from hemp
Newfoundland-based eDNAtec Inc., a leader in environmental genomics that analyzes biodiversity and ecological health
Oregon-based Espiku Inc., which designs and develops water treatment and mineral extraction technologies that rely on low-pressure evaporative cycles
New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs
New Jersey-based Metal Light Inc., which is building a circular, solid metal fuel that will serve as a replacement for diesel fuel
Glasgow-based Novosound, which designs and manufactures innovative ultrasound sensors using a thin-film technique to address the limitations of traditional ultrasound with applications in industrial, medical and wearable markets
Calgary-based Serenity Power, which has developed a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology

The COPILOT accelerator companies include:

Accelerate Wind
Aquora Biosystems Inc.
EarthEn
Electromaim
EnKoat
GeoFuels
Harber Coatings Inc.
Janta Power
NanoSieve
PolyQor Inc.
Popper Power
Siva Powers America
ThermoShade
V-Glass Inc.

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