Enlight Renewable Energy (“Enlight”, "the Company”, NASDAQ: ENLT, TASE: ENLT.TA), a leading renewable energy platform, announces the initial start of commercial operations at its Atrisco Solar & Energy Storage project (“Atrisco”, “the Project”) outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Project consists of 364 MW solar generation capacity and 1.2 GWh of energy storage capacity, and was developed and built by Enlight’s U.S. subsidiary Clenera.
The Solar generation array is expected to reach full commercial operations over the next several weeks, and the Energy Storage (BESS) complex of the project is expected to complete COD before year end. The power produced at Atrisco is being purchased by the Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) under the terms of a 20-year power purchase agreement. The clean energy to be produced by the facility is equivalent to the average annual consumption of approximately 110,000 New Mexico households.
Atrisco is the largest project built by Enlight both in terms of capacity and capital expenditure. During construction, the Project employed hundreds of engineers and skilled personnel. The Engineering, Procurement, and Construction contractor was RES Americas, and Miller Brothers is the operations and maintenance contractor. The project uses solar panels from Runergy, trackers from Array Technologies Inc, string inverters from Sungrow, and the energy storage system was supplied by Tesla.
Atrisco was built at a total cost of $827 million and total Project cost net of tax equity of $407 million. The Project is expected to generate revenues of $51-55 million and EBITDA of $41-45 million in its first full year of operation. As previously reported, financial close on the Energy Storage portion was achieved in July 2024, and on the Solar portion in December 2023. In total, the Project has received $290 million in debt financing from consortiums of large American and international banks led by HSBC, and a total of $420 million from tax equity partners Bank of America and US Bank. In connection with the Energy Storage financing, which occurred on July 25, 2024, the Company recycled $234 million of equity back to its balance sheet. Enlight will provide $117 million of long-term net equity to the project.
“Achieving the first phase of commercial operations at Atrisco is a major milestone,” said Clenera President and CEO Adam Pishl. “We have taken a brownfield site with little use and transformed it into a clean energy power plant. The low-cost, emission-free energy produced here will benefit generations of New Mexico residents and is the first of our future investments in the state.”
“We are proud to see Clenera, our operational arm in the U.S., achieving the important milestone of Atrisco’s COD,” commented Gilad Yavetz, CEO of Enlight Renewable Energy. “Atrisco is a win-win venture for New Mexico’s economy, climate goals, and energy security, as well as for Enlight as a leading renewable energy developer and IPP. Atrisco’s electricity will be generated at an attractive price, reduce carbon emissions, and create economic development and employment opportunities for the broader region. Our additional clean energy projects in New Mexico and the Southwest – some being even larger than Atrisco – are at an advanced development stage. We look forward to commissioning these projects as well, further contributing to the region’s environmental wellbeing and economic prosperity.”
