The major has got hold of a specialist in large solar panel farms.
In an acquisition, TotalEnergies has just secured a good part of its future in the United States in renewables. The French major announced Wednesday that it swallowed the Texan Core Solar. This company specializes in the prospecting and development of sites that can accommodate large solar panel farms, as well as in the development of this type of asset. It has a portfolio of 4 gigawatts of projects. This is as much as what the group will already build by 2025 in the United States. It is thus expanding its growth potential in the field, where it is already developing 2.2 GW, either alone or in partnership.
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Core Solar, on the other hand, does not have any field of its own – it is not its business model. Only part of its 4 gigawatts of projects is guaranteed to date to be connected to the electricity grid, an obviously crucial element – but not always easy to obtain – for renewable energy parks. The first Core Solar projects should begin by the end of the year.
Over the past 18 months, TotalEnergies has sought to strengthen and reorganize itself in the US market. The French company has thus built up its own portfolio around solar power (via the direct takeover of activities from its subsidiary SunPower at the start of the year), offshore wind power (it won a call for tenders for 3 gigawatts on the East Coast) and battery storage.
Core Solar is the piece of the puzzle that TotalEnergies lacked in this context to develop in solar energy in the United States. He had to get his hands on a “developer», that is to say a specialist in the field who prospect and puts together files for large-scale photovoltaic power plants.
Great potential
The group is therefore seeking to control most of the electricity value chain in the United States. Upstream, it is developing its production capacities very quickly and downstream, it is already very active in trading. This last activity is essential to properly promote its renewable electricity production on the market.
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TotalEnergies, whose American headquarters are located in Houston, wants to achieve 10 to 15% of its group objective in solar energy in the United States. “A key region to reach our goal of 100 GW of renewable electricity generation capacity worldwide by 2030”underlined Vincent Stoquart, Director of Renewables at TotalEnergies.
The group is currently developing 10 gigawatts of solar and wind projects, especially at sea, across the Atlantic. “Along with China, India and Europe, the United States is now one of the four most dynamic markets in renewables. By 2030, we are talking, for example, of a potential development of 300 GW just for solar power”, Vincent Stocquart recently explained in an internal publication for the group. It must be said that the Biden administration strongly supports the sector to reduce CO2 emissions from the American economy.