Ørsted completes Muscle Shoals solar project in Alabama

The 670,000 solar panel project is now complete, increasing Ørsted’s operational solar PV capacity to 647 MW and diversifying the company’s footprint through a new partnership with the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Ørsted continues to expand its solar footprint across the US and has completed the 227 MWAC Muscle Shoals solar PV project in Colbert County, Alabama. Located in the Tennessee Valley Authority (‘TVA‘) service area, the project has a long-term PPA with TVA. This new project will support the sustainability goals of Facebook’s data center in Huntsville, Alabama that just started operations.

“We’re very excited to add to our high-quality, diverse customer base through this long-term partnership with TVA and Facebook,” says Vishal Kapadia, Chief Commercial Officer of Ørsted's Onshore business, adding: “The acquisition and completion of Muscle Shoals represents the continued successful execution of our expansion strategy in which we seek to complement our core market greenfield development activities with opportunistic acquisitions in new markets to diversify our portfolio.”

"This solar farm is a historic moment in TVA history," said Doug Perry, Senior Vice President, TVA Commercial Energy Solutions, adding: "It's the first Green Invest project to come online, and it demonstrates the value of TVA's focus on cleaner energy. Green Invest is helping us build the clean, low-cost energy system of the future that’s essential to achieving our environmental goals and competing for jobs in the new clean economy."

Since 2005, TVA has reduced carbon emissions by 63%. With a variety of initiatives, including long-term customer partnerships for Green Invest projects, the utility plans to reduce that number to 70% by 2030, 80% by 2035, and to achieve net-zero emission generation by 2050.

Ørsted acquired Muscle Shoals in 2020 from Longroad Energy and has 1.4 GW of solar and storage capacity in operation and under construction.