All-of-the-above energy developer Buckeye Partners has contracted Kansas City-based Burns & McDonnell to lead engineering, procurement and construction work on a 164-MW solar energy project in Texas.
The Buckeye project is being located in Hill County between Waco and Dallas. It is part of the energy transition strategy for Buckeye Partners, which also owns and operates a diversified midstream portfolio including liquid petroleum facilities.
“We are fortunate to be working with forward-thinking innovators in our industry, like Buckeye, to uniquely capture market opportunities in the renewables space,” said Mark Swanson, vice president for refining, logistics, midstream and chemicals in the Oil, Gas & Chemical Group at Burns & McDonnell.
Burns & McDonnell will be responsible for full scope of the solar project from design to construction, startup and commissioning. The work also includes building of a new 345-kV interconnection substation to distribute the solar power via the utility transmission system.
“This project is a fitting example of a company penetrating the renewable energy market, and we’re excited to support Buckeye in that effort,” said Adam Bernardi, renewables business development lead of the Energy group at Burns & McDonnell.
The project will include more than 360,000 First Solar modules and is anticipated to generate enough energy to power over 28,000 homes annually. Construction started in April 2022 and is expected to be complete by the first quarter of 2023.
Earlier this year, Buckeye Partners announced it had selected Black & Veatch as the EPC services contractor for its 270 MW solar project in central Texas.
The Project Parker photovoltaic solar project will include the installation of more than 500,000 solar panels on two adjacent sites near Waco, Texas. This project in Falls County is expected to complete early in 2023.
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(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).