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(TITUS LLC) Drone footage of part of the area in Young County west of Eliasville where a solar project is in the early phases of development from Titus Low Carbon Ventures.
A solar project in Young County west of Eliasville is in the early phases of development from Titus Low Carbon Ventures.
Titus LCV President Jeff Ferguson and Texas Energy Consultants President Robert Peña spoke Monday, Jan. 27 about the Tapaderos Solar project with the Young County Commissioners Court.
“The Tapaderos project is slated to be 300 megawatts with a 200 megawatt onsite battery energy storage system,” Ferguson said. “We are very excited about the project. It’s one of our top-tier assets that we have in our portfolio.”
Ferguson said the company is experienced with renewable energy development with over 50 years of collective development experience in the market and over $9 billion financed for renewable energy projects.
Titus LCV develops clean energy projects across the United States, with an emphasis on solar power projects.
“The company… is currently working on a portfolio of primarily solar projects (and) we do have one wind project of over five (to) five-and-a-half gigawatts between Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Those are our core development areas,” Ferguson said.
The project will cover an area of 2,200 acres and the lease of the land will be for 30 years with two 10-year extensions. It will be located on a section of land west of Eliasville off FM 1975.
“I can assure you that we treat all of our landowners like partners,” Ferguson said. “We’re (also) going to treat the county like a partner in this development.”
Ferguson estimated that after the project is up and running there will be seven full-time employees at the facility with an estimated average salary between $60,000-80,000.
“I would expect them to live inside the county because it’s important that the operating staff is onsite,” he said.
The company president said construction of a solar project is estimated to take around 18 months. The company will be looking to purchase panels domestically for the project.
“We’ll be using top manufacturers for the solar panels,” Ferguson said. “…We would probably use Tesla or similar battery technology for the battery component of the project.”
Peña said a Texas Public Utility Commission interconnection request and agreement can take an estimated 18 months due to the time it takes for an interconnection study to be conducted and completed.
“Thereafter they begin to discuss the agreement and make sure the attorneys are satisfied with it,” he said. “So the reason you see a potential 2027 start date is Titus has already engaged with the Public Utility Commission. They’re facing the longest lead time already on that interconnection agreement. It will be around 18 to 24 months, so that’s why you see a construction start date of about 2027.”
Renewable energy companies will typically speak with the county commissioners and establish a road use maintenance agreement, Peña said.
“What we would like to do is engage with you commissioner (Scott Shook) closely to identify if there are any county roads in the region where that might be affected by the project,” he said. “We don’t think so, because the landowner that we are working with primarily encompasses most of the area.”
Young County Judge Win Graham announced during the meeting Monday that he had a conflict of interest with the project which would prevent him from voting on future items relating to the solar farm.
“I need to disclose to the court that my family owns a significant portion of the minerals underneath this solar farm and we did sign a surface waiver agreement with them that would result if they build this farm,” he said.
The company still must submit their tax abatement application with the county which the commissioners will discuss in a future com meeting.
A tax abatement is a local agreement between a taxpayer and taxing entity that exempts all or part of the increase in the value of property from taxation for a period not to exceed 10 years, according to the state comptroller’s office.
“We appreciate the opportunity to submit our (abatement) application to you and begin the discussions and fine tune points or questions I understand you may have,” Peña said
