Walmart is investing in 19 solar projects under development across the US, including 15 community solar projects.
Walmart’s strategic tax equity investment will drive the construction, operation, and maintenance of solar projects across five states – Illinois, Colorado, Maryland, Delaware, and California.
As the American Council on Renewable Energy explains, tax equity investors provide funding to take advantage of the tax benefits and receive cash flows from the project, partnering with the project sponsor to become a partial owner of the project company.
In this case, Walmart is partnering with Colorado-based renewable energy provider Pivot Energy, and the retail giant’s tax equity investment will enable the construction of 72 megawatts (MW) of community solar projects. In Colorado, 41 MW of those projects will serve low and moderate-income homes.
Pivot Energy will also work closely with landowners to implement agrivoltaics on several community solar projects. It will install drip irrigation, enabling crop production in between the solar array rows, in addition to sheep grazing and habitat enhancement.
The community solar projects are slated for 2024 and 2025 and will support around 7,000 households’ access to community solar subscriptions. They’re expected to bring subscribers more than $6 million in potential annual savings.
Walmart said in January that it’s aiming to “unlock up to 2 gigawatts (GW) of new community solar projects around the US.”
By the end of 2030, it also plans to “enable” up to 10 GW of new onsite and offsite clean energy projects – the equivalent of the annual power consumption of more than 2 million households.
