Avangrid, a US solar project developer, has signed a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Portland General Electric (PGE) for its 120MW Tower Solar project in Morrow County, Oregon.
Under this agreement, PGE will sell the power generated to corporate and industrial customers through its Green Future Impact (GFI) program, which allows them to purchase renewable energy certificates (RECs) linked to the PGE grid.
The RECs from Tower Solar will be sold to data centre provider QTS, which is building a facility for Meta in the region. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has committed to using 100% renewable energy. Using RECs allows companies to pay for renewable energy generated at a site without directly sourcing the energy from that location.
Located on industrially-zoned land owned by the Port of Morrow, Tower Solar is set to deploy around 200,000 solar modules upon completion in 2026. Avangrid did not disclose details about the technology or suppliers for the modules. CEO Pedro Azagra emphasized that projects like Tower Solar contribute to the country’s energy independence and reflect Avangrid’s ongoing investment in the region.
This PPA is part of a growing trend in which data centre companies are securing renewable energy supply. Avangrid and Meta previously signed a deal for the 240MW True North solar project in Texas, which will power a Meta data centre. Large tech companies like Amazon, Meta, and Google have become some of the biggest private buyers of solar power in the US.
Brett Greene, PGE’s senior director of clean energy origination and structuring, noted that the Green Future Impact program helps major customers like QTS meet sustainability goals through local clean energy.
Data centres are becoming an increasingly significant energy consumer. While they currently account for 2-4% of total electricity consumption in large economies, their local impact can be substantial, as seen in some US states and Ireland.
Oregon, where Tower Solar is located, has 113 data centres, 30 of which are in the Boardman market, the same area where Tower Solar is being built. Many of these centres are owned by Amazon Web Services, which has the largest contracted solar project pipeline in the US, with over 13.5GW of capacity.
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