INTERVIEW: JERA Americas focused on ERCOT as it pushes for 2 GW renewable target by 2025

JERA Americas plans to have roughly a quarter of the 2 GW of renewable capacity to come online in the ERCOT market by 2025.

That is according to Steve O’Rourke, head of renewables for the Houston-based JERA Americas, the United States arm of the Japanese company JERA. O’Rourke, in an interview with NPM, called Texas “a place where you want to play if you're playing in the United States.”

To fulfill the rest of that 2 GW — part of JERA’s larger goal of 5 GW of renewables globally by 2025 — the company is casting a wide net.

“And where we have focused thus far (beyond ERCOT) is in the Northwest, the Southwest, a little bit in California, and in MISO. […] It's kind of hard to say what percentages in each of those overall, but I would say that it would be reasonably distributed across those regions,” O’Rourke said. “And we also hope to bring in some assets in the PJM market as well, but we're not quite there yet.”

The first big chunk out of that 2025 goal came recently in Texas, with the announcement of the company’s acquisition of the roughly 300 MW El Sauz Ranch Wind Power Project in Willacy County from Apex Clean Energy.

Construction starts early next year and operation is expected in 4Q24.

The move is in keeping with the strategy with which JERA is approaching the US market. The company is looking to acquire wind projects, either operational or under development, because they take longer to bring to commercial operation, and to develop solar “from scratch,” O’Rourke said.

“I will say that we do an awful lot of greenfield development in solar, in part just because the margins are a little thinner in solar than maybe they tend to be in wind so it makes a lot of sense to develop those from scratch,” O’Rourke said. “And we’ll supplement those with energy storage as well, where it's appropriate to do so.”

The company also works in Liquified Natural Gas, or LNG, and its Houston headquarters had to do with the company’s existing holdings in the state, JERA Americas President Steve Winn told NPM. Locally, JERA has an investment in FLNG Liquefaction LLC, the owner and operator of the first liquefaction train for the massive Freeport LNG complex.

The company only started its renewable branch last year. Since then, it has assembled a pipeline of roughly 3 to 4 GW, and is always looking for more opportunities.

“JERA in November of 2020 announced a zero-carbon-by-2050 objective … And so, we are actively working towards that. So in the US that means expansion of the renewable business,” Winn said. “It also means sort of modifying some of the other assets in our portfolio to be … less carbon intense (and move) towards certain low carbon fuels in support of the broader initiative of decarbonization.”*

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