Danish renewables developer Orsted has started up its first utility-scale solar plus battery storage project, the 460MW Permian Energy Center project, in the US state of Texas.

Switch on of the hybrid plant, which marries 420MW of PV with a 40MW battery facility at 3,600-acre site neighbouring operating oil & gas fields, means Orsted now has the US project portfolio covering all renewable energy technologies.

“Permian Energy Center is a significant milestone, making [us] the first developer to own the full spectrum of new renewable energy technologies at utility scale in the US - onshore and offshore wind, solar PV, and storage,” said Neil O'Donovan, chief operations officer of Orsted's Onshore business in the US.

The project, a legacy project acquired with the takeover of US developer Lincoln Clean Energy in 2018, is made up of 1.3 million solar panels able to generate electricity to power more than 80,000 US households.