Goldman Sachs Solar+Energy Storage Project Begins Operations with Five California PPAs

Goldman Sachs Asset Management affiliate Goldman Sachs Renewable Power (GSRP) has launched the Slate solar- and energy storage project. This project is part of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which currently owns over 850 solar and storage projects. Recurrent Energy, a Canadian Solar subsidiary, originally developed the 390 MW solar and 561 MWh storage projects.

“We are thrilled that Slate is now online and serving California-based organizations,” says Jon Yoder, head of GSRP. There is significant demand throughout California for solar and energy storage projects at this scale, and we look forward to continuing to invest in projects like Slate that will help facilitate the state’s transition to a carbon-free power grid. We thank our partners at Recurrent once again for delivering on this project and we look forward to operating this project for decades to come.”

The Slate project, located in Kings County, Calif., is supported by power purchase agreements with five California-based organizations – Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Central Coast Community Energy (3CE), the Power and Water Resources Pooling Authority (PWRPA), Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE), and Stanford University.

“Congratulations to all the organizations and individuals across both the private sector and public sector that contributed to making this project happen, helping put Kings County at the forefront of California’s clean energy future,” states Siva Gunda, California Energy Commission’s vice chair. Meeting the state’s 100 percent clean electricity goals requires an unprecedented amount of new solar and storage resources to come online and a tremendous amount of collaboration to build the type of solutions at the scale we need.”

“Slate is a landmark project that will help California meet its leading renewable energy targets,” adds Dr. Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar. “We started developing Slate in 2015, and we’re proud that this project was contracted as one of the first utility-scale solar and energy storage projects in the state, thanks to the forward-thinking leadership among the projects’ customers. Recurrent’s energy storage business is now on an equal footing with our long-running solar business, and we’re pleased to demonstrate our execution capabilities on another project with our partners at GSRP.”