As we reflect on the year 2024, we cannot help but feel a sense of gratitude and excitement. It really feels like it was a marquee year with healthy growth, charity, and future opportunities. Here’s a quick recap of what we saw in the last twelve months.
At the beginning of 2024, we announced the plan to transition leadership at Clēnera. Our founding CEO, Jason Ellsworth, was called to a voluntary mission with his church. Stepping up to take the reins was his long-time friend, Clēnera co-founder, and then-COO Adam Pishl. With the transition came a re-emphasis on executing the company's extensive development pipeline and bringing more clean energy and storage projects to the market. As we look back on the year, we can't help but say this transition has been a success. Let's look back on some of those achievements!
In December, we celebrated the successful commissioning of the Atrisco Solar and Storage facility in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. This facility includes a 364 MWdc solar farm and a 1.2 GWh battery storage yard. The farm generated enough electricity to power over 110,000 local homes and the batteries keep providing low-cost, clean energy at that level for an additional four hours.
We also celebrated the first full year of operations of our 105 MWdc Apex solar farm outside Dillon, Montana. The farm lived up to projections and achieved operational goals. We continue to improve the site with managed grazing of sheep and llamas, adding more watering stations for the animals while they help reduce vegetation and improve soil conditions. We’re proud to demonstrate with this site the many benefits of utility-scale solar farms.
The end of 2024 saw the start of construction on three new solar and storage facilities across the western U.S.
Outside Sacramento, California the Country Acres Clean Power project is geared up. The first phase of construction involves making improvements to a public roadway to accommodate the construction traffic on the project site. That work will soon be complete, and we’ll see a small army of skilled workers build out the site. When everything is done, the project will have a capacity of 392 MWdc with additional battery storage of 688 MWh.
In the rural desert east of Tucson, work is underway on the Roadrunner Solar and Storage facility. This site will build out 290 MWdc of solar power and 940 MWh of battery storage. Crews have been at work for several weeks preparing the laydown yard, clearing debris for the solar panels, and putting in the foundations for the substation. This project also recently closed financing on $550 million for construction.
Lastly, we have an expansion project of Atrisco in Rio Rancho, a project called Quail Ranch. This facility will build an additional 128 MWdc of solar generation and 400 MWh of battery storage.
Farther out, we continue to do pre-construction development work on the Snowflake Solar Complex. In 2024 we announced a Power Purchase Agreement for the first phase of the project by the Arizona Public Service.
Our company values get summarized in a simple phrase: Build Better. Give More. It summarizes our drive to develop, build, and operate the best solar and storage projects in the world and in so doing be the best neighbor and global citizen we can be.
In our hometown of Boise, Idaho, we are constantly looking for ways to give back. In 2024, we made a major donation of solar panels to local mountain recreation area Bogus Basin. We sponsored local events, including a Boise State football game, the St. Luke’s FitOne Races, and Bogus Basin. We cleaned up some local parks and helped make Christmas extra special for some local families with a partnership with the Idaho Youth Ranch.
In the communities where we are building clean power projects, we continue to invest in bettering the place. We had staff help a local tree sale fundraiser in Michigan. We were happy to be a sponsor of the Sherman County Fair in central Oregon. We’re helping students with real-world training and educational opportunities in the solar industry in Rio Rancho, NM.
One of our major charitable partnerships we started this year is with Heart of America. One of their focus areas is bringing residential solar power and battery storage to homes in Navajo Nation to power the devices children need for their education. With many projects in the American Southwest, this is a need that is near and dear to us. With the help of matching donors, we helped raise $38,500 in the final quarter of 2024 for this initiative. We are excited to build on this partnership and support their work in 2025!
This last year has been an exceptional one with more milestones, achievements and bars set ever higher; and we’re still building up. We know the good work we’ve accomplished this year could not happen without an incredible community of support. From our industry-leading employees, suppliers, and contractors to our utility partners, regulatory agencies, and financers, it takes many hands to produce the good things we did this year. We are so grateful to each and every one of them and look forward to more success in2025.