EDPR DG executives provide project level details as it rolls out unique Google partnership

It may have taken a few years for the pieces to come together, but EDP Renewables North America (EDPR NA), in partnership with Google, has developed a model that resembles community solar but bypasses a prevalent roadblock—the community solar tariff.

 “Every time a community solar tariff is released, it’s already entirely allocated with projects that are left over from the previous tariff that didn’t get in,” said Richard Dovere, Chief Investment Officer of EDPR NA DG, in an interview with NPM. “We needed to come up with a way that was not reliant on regulatory support in order to make these community solar projects work—or at least synthetically achieve the same thing,” Dovere said.

 The Clean Energy Financial Benefit Sharing Program initiative was announced Monday between EDPR NA Distributed Generation (EDPR NA DG) business unit and Google who pledged to develop more than 80 distributed generation projects totaling 500 MWAC. The projects are to benefit more than 25,000 families in low-to-moderate income (LMI) communities, according to the press release.

 To accomplish this goal, EDPR NA DG will be constructing small, distributed scale projects, sub 20 MW, which will interconnect to the grid. The projects will typically be 5 MW ground mount systems that occupy about 20 acres of land. EDPR will be long-term owners and operators of the projects, according to Dovere. The initiative will initially focus on Ohio in PJM, and also Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.

 It will take about four to five years for the partnership to reach the 500 MW target, said Gustavo Monteiro, EDPR NA DG Chief Executive Officer, adding they are prepared to deploy the first round of projects next year.

 “We will then execute market energy hedging and monetization strategies for the energy commodity,” Dovere added.

 Separately, the REC, or in this structure, the ImpactREC, will be sold to Google. The ImpactREC program was also created in the collaboration and carries additional weight by certifying direct community investment and LMI benefit. The biggest difference between an ImpactREC and a traditional REC is the social impact component, Dovere said.

 “We wanted to create that same economic benefit while also making it a viable investment product,” Dovere said. “That is basically what is happening here quantitatively. The ImpactREC creates that little bit of an adder, but it does it in a way that also comes with requirements on making sure that the economic benefits and the broader environmental justice benefits are passed through to the communities which these projects are installed,” Dovere said.

 The contribution will be to initiatives in the communities through bill rebates and community investment fund, valued at USD 12m—which will go to those 25,000 households. It will be done with the help of beneficiary acquisition partners, Dovere said. The fund will be focused on initiatives reducing energy poverty in the communities where projects are built.

 “The word choice is very specific—it's not acquiring customers or subscribers—its acquiring beneficiaries. LMI households that will be able to get financial savings,” Dovere added. The first projects will be developed in the PJM interconnection territory—specifically Ohio.

 “It's where Google wished to start and where Google has extensive recent investments and presence,” said Monteiro. Google operates a data center campus in New Albany and Google Cloud region in Columbus.

 Ohio was also targeted because it was a deregulated market, Dovere said. That may change soon as community solar legislation is expected to be introduced in the state in the next week, NPM previously reported.

 “It leverages existing regulatory constructs. We wanted to be able to operate without having to wait for policy to catch up with us,” Dovere said.

 Google will not be an off taker of power from the deal because frankly—it is just not feasible, Dovere said.

 “Google’s scale of procurement makes it difficult for them to be direct clients from a distributed generation standpoint but ultimately there was a huge amount of desire from Google’s side to do something in DG,” said Dovere, describing them as ideal clients because they “had an open door to an incomplete idea.”

 “This can really become the manifestation of corporates who want to buy credits,” Dovere said, describing the ImpactREC as something that speaks louder than corporates who are just powered by renewable energy or purchased renewable energy offsets.

 “It is more—it is saying we are powered by renewable energy, and we are investing in the community in which we operate. And that additional amount is everything,” Dovere said.

 “We’re very excited to release the details about this—the effort here is to really make this something that is utilized over and over again—and we’re excited about that,” he added.

*This story was originally published exclusively for NPM subscribers last month.


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