Freepoint buys Harrington land for solar project

The future Raceway project will appear similar to this project in New York, once completed. | PHOTO COURTESY OF SUNEAST DEVELOPMENT

HARRINGTON — The developer of the state’s largest solar projects has bought the property for its Harrington solar array, as a sign of strengthening its foothold in the First State.

Freepoint Solar, the young subsidiary of the global Freepoint commodities firm based in Connecticut, bought the 290 acres of land for $2.35 million, according to Kent County land records. The property was officially bought by FPS Raceway LLC, the name shared with the 50-megawatt Raceway Solar Project in Harrington.

The $45 million Raceway project near the intersection of Farmington and Walter Messick roads was approved by Kent County Levy Court last May. Before the sale on April 1, Freepoint was leasing the land, but ultimately decided to forge on with buying the property.

The firm is in the process of completing preliminary engineering and is preparing to file permits, according to Peter Ford, managing director of Freepoint Solar.

The Raceway Solar project is the second-largest size of the young Freepoint’s projects. The company is also developing the 114-megawatt Cedar Creek Solar Project in Townsend, which easily dwarfs the state’s current largest array of 17-megawatts in Milford.

“Freepoint may buy or lease land depending on landowner preference,” Ford told the Delaware Business Times. “[Our] commitment to complete these solar projects remains strong, and total investment to complete both Raceway and Cedar Creek will be in excess of $200 million.”

Freepoint has 400 megawatts of solar power under development on the East Coast from Delaware to Maine, and Ford previously told the DBT that the firm is looking to find investment opportunities in markets that are underserved by solar power. 

New Jersey, New York, and Maryland have an array of solar projects due to their favorable tariff structures, but Delaware and other smaller Mid-Atlantic and New England states have room to grow.

Freepoint also signed a deal with Dover last summer to buy a total of 50 megawatts of power between  the Raceway and Cedar Creek projects, at a price of 4 cents a kilowatt hour for 25 years. That falls under the average fixed rate of a little more than 7 cents a kilowatt hour on the market in Delaware as of June.