Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Avangrid Inc. and Portland General Electric have signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for Tower Solar, a new 120 MW AC solar energy project now under construction in Morrow County, Ore., in collaboration with QTS and Meta.

The facility will deliver energy to Portland General Electric’s grid through Green Future Impact (GFI), a voluntary program designed to help large commercial, industrial and municipal customers meet their sustainability and carbon reduction goals through the development of new clean energy facilities.

Subscribers to PGE’s GFI program enroll in a bundled renewable energy product and receive the renewable energy certificates (RECs) associated with the energy generated from the new facility. PGE’s subscription pricing is designed to avoid cost shifting to non-participating customers.

Under PGE’s GFI program, QTS, a data center solutions provider, is developing a data center campus to support Meta’s operations in the region that will be supported by energy from Tower Solar, helping to meet Meta’s sustainability and 100% renewable energy goals.

“The Green Future Impact program allows PGE to partner with our largest customers like QTS to meet their ambitious sustainability goals through local clean energy,” says PGE’s Brett Greene. “Through GFI, our largest customers can fund the development of the renewable resources they need while supporting green jobs and revenue for Oregon communities.”

Tower Solar will be located just west of Boardman and located on about 900 acres of industrially zoned land owned by the Port of Morrow near the Boardman Airport. The project will utilize more than 200,000 solar panels.

At the peak of construction, Avangrid expects Tower Solar to create more than 200 jobs, the vast majority of which will be sourced from the region. Tower Solar is expected to pay about $20 million in combined PILOTs (payment in lieu of taxes) and property taxes.

Avangrid is the leading supplier of renewable energy to PGE’s Green Future Impact program, including from Pachwáywit Fields, Oregon’s largest operating solar facility, and the Daybreak and Bakeoven solar farms, which are currently under construction.

Together with Tower Solar, the current combined capacity of the Green Future Impact program facilities will be 482 MW AC.

Tower Solar will become Avangrid’s sixth solar facility in Oregon once construction is complete in 2026.

The post Oregon Utility Signs on to Back 120 MW Solar Development appeared first on Solar Industry.

Oregon Utility Signs on to Back 120 MW Solar Development

Renewable Energy

The Catastrophic Shift in America’s Impact on the World

Published

21 hours ago

March 22, 2026

Alice Rush

It’s not as if the United States has held the moral high ground throughout its history, with its slavery, the butchering of the Indians, Jim Crow, the support of tyrannical dictatorships around the globe, and the corrupt suppression of the working class in favor of Trump’s billionaire donors.

Yet, it was very recently that the entire nation became a force for the destruction of civil society.

The Catastrophic Shift in America’s Impact on the World

Renewable Energy

We’re Running Out of Time

Published

3 days ago

March 20, 2026

Alice Rush

There really are threats to human civilization that seem to be mounting in intensity:

• World fascism. (If it can happen in the U.S., it could conceivably happen anywhere.)

• Environmental collapse.

• Malicious use of AI.

• Pandemics, as misinformation on vaccinations spread and the frozen tundra melts, releasing pathogens never seen by humans.

• Nuclear war.

Addressing the point made at left, is there any scenario in which world governments agree to cooperate so as to stave off the end of an organized society here on Earth? One supposes so, though it sounds far-fetched in today’s world in which the leaders of most of the 200+ sovereign nations are trying so desperately to cling to power.