The French company Total Energies operates three huge production plants for various plastic and petrochemical products in La Port and Port Arthur in Texas and in Carvill, Louisiana. These plants need a lot of energy to produce polypropylene and polystyrene, for example.
Reducing emissions from production
To minimise emissions from plastic production, Total Energies built the huge Myrtle Solar Farm south of Houston, Texas. This will at least allow the company to reduce the CO2 emissions generated for energy production. The refining of petroleum into various petrochemical products such as fossil fuels continues to produce immense CO2 emissions. But with solar energy, at least its production is climate-neutral, which makes it only marginally better in view of the climate crisis.
70 per cent for self-consumption
Total Energies has installed about 705,000 solar modules to supply the three plants on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. These have a combined output of 380 megawatts. About 70 per cent of the solar power generated is sufficient to supply the production facilities with electricity.
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Total Energies markets the remaining approximately 30 per cent to the real estate company Kilroy Reality under a power purchase agreement (PPA). The latter will purchase the profit from the solar power for the next 15 years at a fixed price and use it to supply its commercial properties.
Storage unit provides grid service
In addition, Total Energies has installed 114 containers full of battery storage on the site of the solar farm south of Houston. These were made by the subsidiary Saft. They can hold as much as 225 megawatt hours of the Myrtle solar power plant and feed it into the grid when needed. This enables it to take over grid stabilisation services from the Texas grid operator Ercot.
Tax subsidised by the IRS
The Myrtle solar power plant is, according to Total Energies, the largest project of its kind built in the USA to date. It is part of a strategy by the group to establish integrated production based on self-supply in the USA, as Vincent Stoquart, head of Total Energies' renewable division, points out.
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Times are good for such a strategy in the US. This is because the project benefits from tax credits as provided for in the US government's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) industrial incentive programme. Based on the benefits of the IRA tax credits, Totals Energies will actively expand its portfolio of renewable energy projects in the USA. In total, this includes a green power capacity of 25 gigawatts, part of which is already in operation. (su/mfo)
