Texas solar shines through as leader in renewable energy
ANDREWS, Texas — The largest solar farm in Andrews county was installed in late January after several years of construction. The Lapetus Energy Project is 800 acres and contains 340,000 solar panels.
7X Energy, a utility scale solar developer, reports that $20 million in property tax revenue will go into Andrews County.
When it comes to energy, West Texas seems to have it all. The area is rich in oil, wind, and now a boom in solar.
Located 30 miles south of Seminole, Clay Butler, CEO of 7X Energy, said there is a reason they picked this site.
“You’ve gotta have good transmission, how flat the land is, what’s underneath the land,” Butler said. “It puts all these things together and helps us identify what are the best places to put a solar facility.”
Rob Caldwell, president of Duke Energy Renweables, said this is their first large scale project in Andrews County.
“This is a fantastic development opportunity for the region,” Caldwell said. “It diversifies the energy and economic base in the community.”
However, they are not the first developers to bring a large-scale project to West Texas.
Another large-scale project creates a maximum capacity of 100WMac. The project consists of 410,000 solar panels across 887 acres. Meanwhile, other solar farms continue to pop up all over the state.
“There’s a significant amount of customer demand,” Caldwell said. “Industrial customers want it, residential customers want it, our co-ops plant co-ops friends want it.”
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, in 2019, more than 3,000 megawatts of solar energy were installed, enough energy to power more than 400,000 homes. Of the 750 solar companies in the state, that breaks down into 120 manufacturers and 307 installers/developers. In turn, this creates 9,600 jobs.
“There’s a significant amount of customer demand,” Caldwell said. “Industrial customers want it, residential customers want it, our co-ops plant co-ops friends want it.”
However, solar energy only represents one percent of the state’s electricity.
“The oil and gas industry plays an important part of our country’s energy supply and requirements, and so does the renewable energy and I think we just work very well together,” Caldwell said.
One of the ways solar energy is able to be transmitted is through the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT. The energy produced at the Lapetus facility will be transmitted through Brazos Electric and CoServ, going as far as Dallas.
