Renewable specialists squeezed as global utilities take solar seriously - Wiki-Solar

Now that the large-scale solar market has broken through 500 GW DC, it is clear that forward-thinking international utilities are firmly on the bandwagon. The league tables of leading owners and developers published today by Wiki-Solar show traditional utilites now occupying most of the top positions. This means that renewables specialists – though still growing rapidly – are being squeezed down the list.

NextEra Energy retains top spot in both owners and developers list thanks partly to a continuing flurry of new 75 MW plants by its subsidiary Florida Power & Light. Italy’s ENEL leapfrogs to second place in the owners list with new capacity all over Europe and the Americas.

Phases I to III of ENEL's 765 MWAC Sao Goncalo plant in Brazil brought online 2020-22 [1]

China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) has traded places with NextEra at #1 and #2 for several years and now slips provisionally to #3 in both lists. US utility AES meanwhile climbs back to owner #4. With Adani [IN], EDF [FR] and Dominion [US] following next, India’s Azure Power at owner #8 is the only renewables pure-play in the top 10. It is followed by Duke Energy [US] and then Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power which has risen ten places as it connects more phases of the multi-GW Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park (MBR) in the UAE.

“Another company bucking the trend – ACME Solar – climbed ten places to owner #16”, says Wiki-Solar founder Philip Wolfe, “as it too benefits from the new plants directly connected to India’s interstate power transmission system (ISTS). D E Shaw Renewables (DESRI) of the US is also rising”.

Multi-national utilities Iberdrola [ES], NTPC [IN], Engie [FR], BP (through part-owned Lightsource BP) [GB], Shell [NL-GB], Total [FR], and China Three Gorges also feature in the tables. The owners top-list includes a number of investment funds led by Actis, Cubico and Foresight [all GB].

[a] GW AC figures are totalled for projects over 4 MW AC, so GW totals are typically 25-50% higher than shown here.

[b] Wiki-Solar's database holds plant owner/ipps for 49.5% of active plants (19.4% by these 36 listed plant owner/ipps) so some participants may not be shown, and for others figures may be understated by a factor of 2 on average.

The world's top utility-scale solar plant owners with over ~1,000 MW AC cumulative capacity

These companies are joined on the developers list (below) by renewables specialists including ReNew Power [IN], BayWa r.e [DE], Scatec [NO], Enerparc [DE], X-Elio [ES], Invenergy [US], FRV [ES], 8minutenergy [US] and Juwi [DE].

Readers are reminded that Wiki-Solar measures capacity in MW AC including only projects over 4 MW AC, so the listed PV companies have all installed comfortably over 2 GWp, measured by the DC solar array output. Wiki-Solar’s database includes both PV and solar thermal power plants.

T E X T E N D S

(Developers list)

[a] GW AC fiqures are totalled for projects over 4 MW AC, so GW totals are typically 25-50% higher than shown here.

[b] Wiki-Solar's database holds project developers for 72.1% of active plants (27.3% by these 36 listed project developers) so some participants may not be shown, and for others figures may be understated by a factor of 1.4 on average.

The world's top utility-scale solar project developers with over ~1,500 MW AC cumulative capacity

Notes for editors:

[1] Image courtesy of Google, Maxar Technologies, Copernicus/Landsat and Wiki-Solar

[2] This release on the utility-scale solar market is available here:

http://wiki-solar.org/library/public/2211_Utilities_taking_solar_seriously_-_Leading_owners_and_developers.pdf

[3] The top-lists, with further details of the role of the project developers is shown on Wiki-Solar’s website here; and equivalent details for owners are given here.

[4] Wiki-Solar defines ‘utility-scale solar’ as 4 MW AC and above (≈5 MWp for PV; ≈ electricity for 1,500 households in Europe) see: http://wiki-solar.org/data/glossary/utility-scale.html.

[5] Wiki-Solar is the leading authority on utility-scale solar with a database covering over 19,000 utility-scale solar projects, of which about three-quarters are operational. Except where stated, figures in this release are based on the AC export rating of operational plants. Projects under development are excluded until they have been commissioned.

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