REC Solar, a Duke Energy-owned company and leading provider of commercial, public sector and utility-scale solar solutions, has partnered with Hawaiian Electric Company (Hawaiian Electric), a national leader of renewable energy in Hawai’i, to construct a 20-megawatt (MW), utility-scale photovoltaic solar electric facility. The solar farm will be constructed on 102-acres of U.S. Navy-owned land at the Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam West Loch Annex on O’ahu.
REC Solar will build the 80,760-panel solar grid-scale facility that will that will feed into O’ahu’s electric grid and serve all customers. The facility will be owned and operated by Hawaiian Electric. Once completed, the West Loch solar farm will produce the lowest-cost renewable energy in the state at less than 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. With projected savings to Hawaiian Electric customers of approximately $109 million over its expected 25-year lifespan, the solar farm will reduce the utility’s use of imported oil by 76,000 barrels annually.
Hawai’i’s clean energy mandate calls for 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. In the first nine months of 2017, the state generated more than 10 percent of its electricity from solar, one of only three states to do so.
Holland & Hart’s Electric Power team advised REC Solar in the negotiation of the engineering, procurement, and construction contract for the project. Denver partner Ashley Wald led the transactional team.
The Electric Power team leverages decades of power industry experience to help clients seize opportunities to produce, develop, generate, and move electric power in the renewable and conventional power industries.
For more information, please see REC Solar’s press release.