Bank of America is Acquiring RECs to Power its Operations
Bank of America will get nearly 17 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy certificates generated by an Indiana solar facility.
The bank has agreed to a 15-year, 160-megawatt arrangement with Constellation to purchase power and project-specific renewable energy certificates (REC). The arrangement will assist Bank of America in acquiring renewable energy from Doral Renewables' Mammoth Central project in Indiana.
Mammoth Central's renewable energy will power Bank of America branches in Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. According to Bank of America, the solar energy used for these locations will cut greenhouse gas emissions from linked energy use by more than 95,000 metric tonnes per year.
Mammoth Central is the third phase of the larger Mammoth Solar project. The agreement will go into effect once construction is completed and the facility is operating, which is scheduled to be in late 2024.
Bank of America claims that purchasing the RECs helps develop the project and deliver renewable energy to the electric grid. According to the EPA, RECs are given for every megawatt-hour of renewable energy generated and delivered to the grid.
According to Transparent Energy, REC purchases are likely to skyrocket in 2022. According to Edison Energy's data, the demand has caused significant variations in REC pricing, which ranged from $1 to $7 per unit last year.
Bank of America will facilitate the energy transaction through the Constellation Offsite Renewables platform.
Doral has also acquired tax equity financing from Bank of America for the project's initial phase, Mammoth North. This section of the project will generate 400 megawatts of solar energy.
Constellation and Doral have three further REC arrangements in place for another 140 megawatts at Mammoth Central, in addition to the Bank of America agreement. The purchases total 300 megawatts at the facility, which is anticipated to have a renewable energy capacity of 600 megawatts. When finished, the Mammoth Solar plant will have a total capacity of 1.3 gigatonnes.
Source: Environmental Leader
