RWE Renewables has started construction of the Hickory Park solar project, a 195.5-megawatt (MWac) facility coupled with a 40 megawatt 2-hour battery storage system, located in Mitchell County, Georgia.

RWE is the operator and manager of the solar facility, selling the energy and renewable attributes from the facility to Georgia Power through its Renewable Energy Development Initiative program. The project is expected to be online in late 2021.

The company entered into a 30-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Georgia Power Company in November 2019.

“We are extremely pleased to have a project of this size in Georgia under construction. We look forward to working with Georgia Power, a company that’s committed to delivering clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy to advance solar in Georgia.”

Silvia Ortin, COO Onshore Wind and Solar PV Americas.

When complete, the Hickory Park solar power plant will interconnect more than 650,000 solar panels, which together will cover an area of about 1,800 acres.

The integration of a DC-coupled storage system will allow the project’s energy yield to be optimized and increase the predictability of injection of locally produced energy into the Georgia Power grid. This demonstrates how RWE is able to propose storage solutions that fit its customers’ needs to integrate more clean energy into the grid.