Industrial, Solar  -  October 14, 2021

EVRAZ Steel Mill Gets 300 MW Solar Installation

EVRAZ North America announced Oct. 13 that its Pueblo plant will become the first steel mill to be powered largely by solar energy thanks to a new 300 MW project.

The Bighorn Solar project is the result of a collaboration between Lightsource bp and Xcel Energy and will feature 750,000 panels, making it the largest on-site solar facility in the US dedicated to a single customer. The project will provide nearly all of the Rocky Mountain Steel mill’s annual electricity demand for operations and manufacturing and is expected to offset 433,770 metric tons of CO2 emission per year.

Under the agreement, the project is financed, owned and operated by Lightsource bp, who will then sell the energy to Xcel Energy through a 20-year PPA. EVRAZ will receive clean energy at a fixed price from Xcel through 2041.

The solar project is already generating electricity into the grid and is expected to go fully online in November.

“Like bp and Xcel Energy, EVRAZ is committed to reducing emissions and operating more sustainably,” Skip Herald, CEO of EVRAZ North America, said in a statement. “As each new acre of solar panels is installed, we find ourselves closer to our goal of making EVRAZ in Pueblo one of the greenest steel facilities in the world. The journey shows what can happen when like-minded companies come together and work across government and industry to promote cleaner energy, cleaner products and more resilient communities. This is an incredible milestone.”

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