{"id":792386,"date":"2026-07-30T01:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792386\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T01:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:09:11","slug":"why-renewable-energy-developer-avantus-is-betting-on-san-diego-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792386\/","title":{"rendered":"Why renewable energy developer Avantus is betting on San Diego \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Avantus<\/a>, one of the largest utility-scale solar and storage developers in the U.S., recently moved into its new corporate headquarters in downtown San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great city, great skill sets,\u201d said Avantus CEO Cliff Graham<\/a> from his corner office on the 15th floor at 655 West Broadway. \u201cWe looked at the Bay Area, LA and San Diego and did a \u2018bake-off\u2019 between talent, ability and so forth and San Diego clearly won.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company that focuses on utility-scale solar and battery energy storage projects primarily in California, Arizona and Nevada relocated from offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco and El Dorado Hills to San Diego last year.<\/p>\n

After working from a temporary location on the 10th floor, Avantus expanded last month to its sleek corporate space that features impressive views of the city and San Diego Bay.<\/p>\n

Graham said one of the selling points was easy access to San Diego International Airport and the downtown train station at Santa Fe Depot.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Diego is a great location when you look at ease of transportation for people, the ease of getting to headquarters to collaborate,\u201d Graham said. \u201cWe looked a lot of places in and around the San Diego area and we found downtown to be like the gem of the whole area.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 50 employees work at the Broadway location, but Avantus touts a staff of 210 mostly based near the company\u2019s various energy facilities across the West.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe like California, Arizona and Nevada because you have expansive land, limited water and policy for clean air,\u201d Graham said, referring to the fact that solar doesn\u2019t require water for generation or cooling the way that natural gas and nuclear do. \u201cBut we also see high production \u2014 the solar is very strong here,\u201d given the sunny weather in all three of those states.<\/p>\n

The move to San Diego also reflects a broader shift in the company\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n

Historically, Avantus primarily developed solar and storage projects and then sold them to long-term infrastructure owners and investors. But now the company increasingly owns and operates its projects as an independent power producer.<\/p>\n

And the company has been busy.<\/p>\n

On July 20, the Aratina 1 facility in eastern Kern County<\/a> started delivering electricity to California\u2019s grid.\u00a0Just a few days earlier, the company closed a $525 million package<\/a> with three financing firms to develop the second phase of the project, called Aratina 2.<\/p>\n

Southern California Edison has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement for Aratina 2, which is expected to be operational by the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Together, the two facilities will have 350 megawatts of solar capacity and 952 megawatt-hours of battery storage. That\u2019s enough to power 180,000 homes.<\/p>\n

\"BatteryBattery cubes at the Aratina 1 utility-scale storage project in eastern Kern County, developed by San Diego-based renewable energy company Avantus. (Avantus)<\/p>\n

On July 13, Avantus announced a 20-year power purchase agreement with the Clean Power Alliance, a community choice energy program serving Los Angeles and Ventura counties, for the Rexford 2 solar and storage project<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Located in Tulare County, the project will deliver a combined 200 megawatts of solar generation capacity and 800 megawatt-hours of battery energy storage to California\u2019s electric grid \u2014 about enough to power 84,000 homes.<\/p>\n

And in March, Avantus closed a financing package<\/a> of more than $300 million with a pair of financial groups for the Kitt Solar and Energy Storage Project<\/a> in Pinal County, Arizona. The project features 100 megawatts of solar and 400 megawatt-hours of battery storage, with capacity to serve up to 32,000 homes.<\/p>\n

Scheduled to be up and running by the end of this year, the project has signed a power purchase agreement with Arizona Public Service, the largest electric utility in the Grand Canyon State.<\/p>\n

All told, Avantus has 42 renewable energy projects in its development portfolio, with about one-third of them in California.<\/p>\n

None are in San Diego County, but Graham said, \u201cwe\u2019re always looking for transmission and trying to find locations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Solar power and energy stored in batteries have become the anchors of California\u2019s efforts to wean itself from fossil fuels \u2014 in particular natural gas \u2014 to drive the state\u2019s power system.<\/p>\n

While solar is abundant during the day, it vanishes after the sun goes down. But energy storage from batteries can save the power generated by solar and then discharge the electricity later, especially during the crucial 4-to-9 p.m. period when California\u2019s grid is under the most stress.<\/p>\n

The Golden State has gone all-in on batteries, reaching 17,000 megawatts of installed battery storage<\/a> by the end of last year. That\u2019s an increase of 2,100% compared to 2019 and the largest amount of any state.\n<\/p>\n

But a spate of fires at battery facilities has raised concerns.<\/p>\n

In May 2024, emergency responders rushed to the Gateway Energy Storage facility in Otay Mesa<\/a> when nickel manganese cobalt batteries kept reigniting. It took nearly 17 days before the last firefighting and air monitoring crews from San Diego Fire and the Sheriff\u2019s Department left the scene<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In April of this year, global energy company AES withdrew plans<\/a> to build a large battery storage facility in Eden Valley after residents loudly opposed the project, due to potential fire risk.<\/p>\n

Graham said Avantus\u2019s new projects use lithium iron phosphate batteries that are much less likely to overheat, catch fire and lead to \u201cthermal runaway\u201d \u2014 a chemical reaction that spreads in a chain reaction from one battery to another.<\/p>\n

\"SolarSolar arrays at the Aratina 1 utility-scale storage project in Kern County. The facility is developed by Avantus, which recently moved its headquarters to San Diego. (Avantus)<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s Aratina project led to pushback from some residents<\/a> over the destruction of Joshua trees and impacts on wildlife.<\/p>\n

Avantus responded by partnering with state and federal agencies to set aside more than 215,000 acres in Kern County<\/a> to protect Mojave Desert plants, including the western Joshua tree, and animals living on the site.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand the desert\u2019s a very sacred place,\u201d Graham said. \u201cIt\u2019s alive, it needs to be taken care of and fostered. It\u2019s not a wasteland \u2026 So we\u2019re really doing everything we can to keep that balance in a great location.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the political front, the Trump administration is not exactly embracing the renewable energy sector.<\/p>\n

But Graham said officials at Avantus have worked closely with the White House and the U.S. Department of the Interior and, \u201cat this point, we found them very pragmatic.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the company has pushed the case that renewables make sense, particularly in the desert Southwest, harkening to projects such as the Hoover Dam<\/a>, which was built between 1931 and 1936.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been getting our permits through the Trump administration with no problems at this point, so long as we\u2019re able to show it\u2019s compatible,\u201d Graham said, \u201cOn solar-plus-storage, we found them very pragmatic if it makes sense and the land use is consistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

California policymakers have set a goal to derive 100% of the state\u2019s electricity from carbon-free sources by 2045.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat California\u2019s done very well compared to other markets is that early investment has paid off dividends,\u201d Graham said. \u201cToday, we\u2019re at 70% renewables, and our grid is totally stable.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for getting to 100%, Graham said, \u201cI do think that last 10-15% gets really expensive real quick. With today\u2019s technology, I think we can get to 85%, 90% comfortably, but I think that last percentage is the hard part.\u201d<\/p>\n

A private company, Avantus was founded in 2009<\/a>, back when it was called 8minuteenergy Renewables. The company changed its name in 2022, combining the words \u201cadvancing\u201d and \u201cadvantages\u201d with regard to clean energy.<\/p>\n

Global investment firm KKR acquired a majority stake<\/a> in Avantus in 2024 in a deal that resulted in KKR and energy investment firm EIG<\/a> as the sole equity investors in the company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avantus, one of the largest utility-scale solar and storage developers in the U.S., recently moved into its new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[28,1872,192,2558,3,1170,79,2557],"class_list":["post-792386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-business","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-real-estate","tag-science","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}