Wells Fargo has announced a 10-year structured renewable energy agreement to provide solar power from a new Texas facility to nearly 400 Wells Fargo properties.
The deal is with Reliant, an NRG Energy company and is the bank’s largest contract to date in support of its corporate strategy to advance the development of new sources of renewable energy in order to meet its electricity needs.
The Texas utility-scale solar operation will provide nearly 62,000 megawatt-hours of solar energy a year. The NRG Renewable Select plan will provide 100% of Wells Fargo’s annual requirements in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas region as well as 3% of the company’s national load.
Groundbreaking for the Texas facility will be in 2020 and it should begin delivering clean energy to the grid in 2021.
The NRG agreement is the first significant transaction under Wells Fargo’s strategy to contract with providers of renewable energy resources geographically close to its load centers. In this case, by greening the mix of energy sources flowing into the ERCOT grid, the Wells Fargo/NRG transaction helps reduce overall carbon emissions and support resiliency efforts in the region. Wells Fargo is pursuing similar agreements across the U.S. as part of its long-term energy strategy.
As part of its 2020 renewable energy goal, Wells Fargo also will expand its on-site renewables portfolio by installing solar technologies on more than 100 corporate, branch, and data facilities across the U.S. The company currently maintains solar arrays on 16 properties in addition to a number of ATMs.
The company made its first tax equity commitment in 2006; since then, it has become one of the leading investors in the renewable energy space, providing more than $7.5 billion of tax equity financing to customers in support of more than 400 projects.