It was an honor to speak in support of the 400 MW @Mammoth North Solar Project upcoming commercial operation in Indiana yesterday; the first phase of the 1300 MW project developed and owned by Doral Renewables USA providing energy to American Electric Power. Congratulations Nick Cohen, Dori Davidovitz, Yaki Noyman, Amit Nadkarni and the rest of team Doral. Shoutout to SOLV Energy who built this system, and other project participants.
I spoke about 3 revolutions in progress that relate to this project. The first is the metamorphosis of power generation from fossil to renewables that is underway– and solar’s cost-effectiveness in the upper Midwest (not exactly the peak of the sunbelt) is testament to that. The second is the accelerating marriage of solar + farming and ranching known as “AgriPV”; yesterday Mammoth won “Project of the Year” award at the Solar Farm Summit (currently ~1500 sheep are grazing this project, and additional crop-based AgriPV activities are underway). Finally I spoke to the incredible growth in renewable power manufacturing activity; Nextracker Inc. alone has created or expanded 20 factories in the USA with our partners over the last 3 years; with over a hundred additional clean energy factories commissioned or announced as a result from the IRA in the last few years.
I also noted one of our largest raw material suppliers in the USA is Steel Dynamics, Inc, with about 4500 staff in Indiana, producing environmentally-preferred electric arc furnace steel. The State of Indiana economic development agencies have done a terrific job incentivizing smart industry to expand good paying jobs, and connecting jobs to renewable energy projects can help community acceptance and adoption of renewable energy. Doral highlighted additional examples of ranching, farming, food service, recycling, and other local industries the benefitted from the Mammoth project.
Other distinguished speakers included David Rosenberg, Governor Eric Holcomb and First Lady Holcomb, Colin Silver and Sarah Beerbower.
Congratulations on your amazing vision and execution team Doral, and best wishes to your continued success.
Shug
