CARLSBAD & JACUMBA – A long-planned solar and battery storage project near the southern border in the Southeast San Diego County town of Jacumba is now under construction and is expected to be operational in fall of this year.
The Jacumba Valley Ranch (JVR) Energy Park is being developed by Carlsbad-based BayWa r.e. Americas and when completed will supply electricity to approximately 57,000 homes through San Diego Community Power.
The $416 million project broke ground in late fall of last year and in December the project secured a construction-to-term loan, led by French multinational universal bank and financial services company Société Générale, as well as a preferred equity investment from funds managed by New York-based global alternative investment manager Wafra Inc. New York-based infrastructure investment manager Acadia Infrastructure Capital, L.P. also invested preferred equity in the project.
Utility-Scale Projects
BayWa r.e. Americas is the North American renewable energy subsidiary of Munich-based international trading and services company BayWa AG. BayWa r.e. specializes in developing solar, wind and battery projects. Since its founding in 2014, the company has brought around 2 gigawatts of projects online, said BayWa r.e. Executive Vice President of Development Mike Stanton.
“Currently in the U.S. and Mexico we are operating projects totaling 1.2 gigawatts, And we have a development pipeline of over 10 gigawatts,’ he said, adding that most of that work is in the “utility-scale space, projects like JVR.”
The JVR’s utility-scale includes 127 megawatts of solar and 70 megawatts of battery storage capable of 280 megawatt hours of power.
Construction for JVR to be fully operational and commissioned is expected “to wrap up by around October,” said BayWa r.e. Head of Project Delivery Makibi Takagi.
CSI Electrical Contractors of Santa Fe Springs, California engineered and is constructing the solar and battery portion of the project. Kansas-based Black & Veatch, who has an office in San Marcos, is building the high-voltage substation and SDG&E switchyard. The project’s fully integrated battery system is built by Fluence, one of the few manufacturers that make equipment for DC coupled projects, Takagi said.
“Most hybrid PV and best projects are what’s called AC coupled where you have all the batteries in a single yard next to a substation and you have the PV separate from that,” he explained. “DC coupled means that the batteries and the PV are behind the same inverters, so the battery containers are dispersed throughout the site.”
The JVR Energy Park is also equipped with advanced fire protection technology like 24/7 monitoring systems that can isolate and shut down any areas where pressure, sudden volts or smoke is detected. There are also water tanks on site and the vegetation will be
“The fire department has been a very active partner in the project making sure that the project is designed such that there’s adequate fire roads, setbacks, that type of thing,” he added. “On top of that, we’ve donated land adjacent to the site to the San Diego County Fire Department so the plan is we’re going to have a facility built out there and that will have a very quick response if anything ever were to happen.”
Federal Headwinds, Datacenter Tailwinds
The JVR Energy Park is being built amid what Stanton described as “headwinds” for the renewable energy industry.
“That’s not something new for us,” he said. “As long as I’ve been in the industry, there’s been headwinds and tailwinds at the federal level.”
Countering the federal headwinds and an even larger driver that is “underpinning” the industry, he said, has been the “unprecedented load growth” driven by power-hungry datacenters that have created near-term demand “that is right in front of us.”
“Renewables are really the best positioned energy resource out there to meet that near-term demand in the next three to four years – speaking practically about bringing projects online,” he said. “Economically – with or without federal support – solar, in particular, will continue to be one of the lowest cost forms of energy. So that continues to be a foundational tailwind in the sector.”
BayWa r.e. Americas
FOUNDED: 2014
HEADQUARTERS: Carlsbad
INTERIM CEO & COO: Geoff Fallon
BUSINESS: renewable energy projects
EMPLOYEES: ~275
CONTACT: (858) 450-6800
WEBSITE: us.baywa-re.com
NOTABLE: BayWa r.e. Americas has a development pipeline of projects representing over 10 gigawatts of power.
