Atrisco Solar + Storage Project Commences Commercial Operations

Enlight Renewable Energy has begun initial commercial operations at its Atrisco Solar & Energy Storage project, located outside Albuquerque, N.M. 

The project consists of 364 MW solar generation capacity and 1.2 GWh of energy storage capacity. It was developed and built by Enlight’s U.S. subsidiary Clenera. The array is expected to reach full commercial operations over the next several weeks, and the BESS complex of the project is expected to complete COD by the end of the year. 

Power produced at Atrisco is being purchased by the Public Service Company of New Mexico under a 20-year PPA. 

Atrisco is the largest project built by Enlight, both in capacity and capital expenditure. The EPC contractor was RES Americas, and Miller Brothers is the O&M contractor. The project uses solar panels from Runergy, trackers from Array Technologies and string inverters from Sungrow. The energy storage system was supplied by Tesla.

Atrisco was built at a total cost of $827 million and total project cost net of tax equity of $407 million. In total, the project has received $290 million in debt financing from consortiums of banks led by HSBC, and a total of $420 million from tax equity partners Bank of America and US Bank.

“Achieving the first phase of commercial operations at Atrisco is a major milestone,” says Adam Pishl, Clenera president and CEO. 

“We have taken a brownfield site with little use and transformed it into a clean energy power plant. The low-cost, emission-free energy produced here will benefit generations of New Mexico residents and is the first of our future investments in the state.”