March 16, 2020 (Houston, TX) – On Friday, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced a 20-year contract award for the South Ripley Solar and Storage Project through the agency’s 2019 solicitation for large-scale renewables. The contract is for the purchase of renewable energy certificates (RECs) from the project, which is under development by ConnectGen LLC. Each REC represents the environmental attributes of one megawatt hour of electricity generated from a renewable source, such as solar or wind.
The project is a planned 270 megawatt (MW) alternating current, photovoltaic solar energy facility that will be located in the Town of Ripley in Chautauqua County, New York. Additionally, the development will include a 20 MW battery storage component. The South Ripley Solar and Storage Project was one of 21 large-scale solar, wind, and energy storage projects across upstate New York, totaling 1,278 MW of renewable capacity, to receive a contract award.
The South Ripley Solar and Storage Project is currently expected to start construction as early as 2022 and once operational, will accelerate progress towards New York State’s goals to generate 70 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent from carbon-free sources by 2040. In addition, with the inclusion of an energy storage component, the project will enhance integration of renewable energy resources into the electric grid, which will support the State’s nation-leading goal to install 3,000 MW of energy storage by 2030.
Caton Fenz, CEO of ConnectGen said, “We are pleased to have been selected for this award and applaud New York State’s nation-leading effort to transition to a clean energy future. We are proud to support the state’s ambitious clean energy goals with the South Ripley Solar and Storage Project, and we are excited about partnering with our host community to bring significant positive benefits to the local economy in the form of jobs, purchased services, lease and easement payments to host landowners, and meaningful long-term tax revenue to the Town of Ripley, Chautauqua County, and Sherman School District.”
ConnectGen LLC is a subsidiary of 547 Energy. 547 Energy is Quantum Energy Partners’ clean energy platform company.
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About ConnectGen
Founded in 2018, ConnectGen’s strategy is to apply its proven ability to develop, construct and operate clean energy assets to create a multi-technology portfolio of generation and storage projects across North America. The company currently has 139 MW of solar projects in operations and is developing over 3,500 MW of wind, solar and energy storage projects across seven U.S. states. For more information, please visit connectgen.staging.mysites.io.
About Quantum Energy Partners / 547 Energy
Founded in 1998, Quantum Energy Partners is a leading provider of private equity capital to the global energy industry, having managed together with its affiliates more than $17 billion in equity commitments since inception. For more information on Quantum, please visit www.quantumep.com or contact Michael Dalton at (713) 452-2110.
547 Energy is the clean energy platform of Quantum Energy Partners. To date, 547 Energy has invested in ConnectGen (USA) and ENORA S.A. (Greece). 547 Energy was founded and is led by industry veteran Gabriel Alonso. For more information on 547 Energy, please email info@547energy.com.
