NEXTracker, an independent subsidiary of Flextronics International Ltd (Flex), announced that it has supplied its solar trackers for the 754 MW Villanueva project located in Torreón, Mexico, the largest solar project under construction in the Americas.
The project was originally owned by Italian power utility Enel, which has hired as EPC contractor U.S.-based Swinerton Renewable Energy.
In October, Enel announced the sale of an 80% stake in its 1.7 GW of renewable energy project pipeline currently in operation or under construction in Mexico to the Canadian institutional investor, Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and the Mexican pension fund, CKD Infraestructura México.
NEXTracker said today in a press release that “to support the project and other new projects in Mexico and the southwestern region of the United States, NEXTracker has expanded its manufacturing capacity in Mexico”, although it does not provide more information.
Villanueva will have advanced data connectivity, enabled by the SCADA system (Supervision and Data Acquisition Control) of the recently developed NEXTracker.
This data center communicates bi-directionally with Flex's SmartNexus cybersecurity platform. The NEXTracker SCADA platform provides long-term data storage, streamlines the user experience and speeds up commissioning by automating the configuration steps of the tracker.
The Villanueva solar plant will utilize GenX NX Horizon trackers from NEXTracker. Part of the Villanueva project started generating and selling electricity in December 2017, nine months ahead of schedule.
Part of this advance was due to the use of NEXTracker trackers, which allow each row to work independently and connect sequentially as the project progresses, the company said.
Once it is fully operational, the plant will generate enough power to supply 1.3 million homes and offset more than 780,000 tons of carbon emissions annually.
Enel started construction on the Villanueva project in March of last year. It is part of 1 GW of capacity that Enel won in the 2016 energy auction.
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