U.S. Steel’s Big River Steel mill in Arkansas will supply more than 142,000 tons of steel coils for the first two phases of the Steel River Energy Center, one of the largest solar and battery storage projects under construction in the United States.
The steel will be processed by PACO Steel into more than 400,000 structural steel piles manufactured in Mississippi County, Arkansas, where the project is located. Cypress Creek Energy. a U.S. independent power producer and developer of energy infrastructure, said the project will use 100pct US-made structural steel and solar panels.
Construction has begun on the first two phases of the project, which will add 1.6 GWdc of solar generation capacity and 1.9 GWh of battery storage. Upon completion of all three phases by 2029, total capacity is expected to reach 2.5 GWdc of solar and 2.9 GWh of battery storage.
Google has signed a long-term power purchase agreement covering electricity generated from the first two phases, while the project is expected to support rising electricity demand from steel manufacturing, data centres and other industrial users in Arkansas.
According to Cypress Creek, the project is expected to create around 700 construction jobs per phase and generate an estimated USD 300 mln in local tax revenue over its operating life.
Big River Steel Works, a U.S. Steel facility located in Osceola, Arkansas, is one of the most advanced flat-rolled steel mills in North America, with a combined annual raw steelmaking capacity of approximately 6 mln tons across two integrated complexes.