Toyota Boshoku America has signed a 12-year agreement with Clearway Energy Group tied to the Texas Solar Nova solar farm. The announcement was framed as a power purchase agreement. What Toyota Boshoku is actually buying is narrower than that, and it is the same thing two other manufacturers bought from the same Texas complex within a few months.
Key takeaways
- Toyota Boshoku America signed a 12-year agreement, announced on 9 February 2024, to buy a portion of the renewable energy certificates generated by Clearway Energy Group's Texas Solar Nova 1 solar farm in the US.
- The Clearway agreement lets Toyota Boshoku America offset 100 percent of the annual electricity use of its facilities in the United States and Canada with renewable energy from 2026.
- Texas Solar Nova is a two-phase 452 MW solar complex developed by Clearway Energy Group; the first phase was completed in December 2023 and the second phase was nearing completion at the time of the Toyota Boshoku agreement.
- Schneider Electric advised Toyota Boshoku America on selecting and negotiating the Texas Solar Nova agreement, and Leap records it advising SKF on a 12-year certificate deal with Clearway for a 452 MW Kent County, Texas solar farm a week earlier.
- Enerdatics records 58 US solar PPAs announced in 2024 with a disclosed term, and their median length is 15 years, three years longer than the Toyota Boshoku agreement.
What is Toyota Boshoku actually buying from Clearway?
It is buying certificates, not electricity. A renewable energy certificate, or REC, is a tradeable record that one megawatt-hour of renewable power was generated and delivered to the grid. Whoever holds and retires the certificate can claim that megawatt-hour of renewable use. The electrons themselves go into the Texas grid and are sold separately.
That is how a Toyota Group supplier with facilities across the United States and Canada can cover all of that consumption from one solar farm in Texas. The deal does not move power to its sites. The certificates from Texas Solar Nova 1 are what let the company say its electricity use is matched by renewable generation.
The certificates will be listed with the Center for Resource Solutions and meet the Green-e Renewable Energy Standard for the US and Canada. Green-e is a certification scheme that checks a certificate is not counted twice and comes from a qualifying renewable source. For a buyer making public emissions claims, that label is much of what it is paying for.
The deal serves a specific target. Toyota Boshoku America aims to cut its Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 100 percent by 2035 from a 2019 base year, and to be carbon neutral by 2050. Scope 2 covers emissions from purchased electricity, which is exactly what certificates are used to address.
Who else is buying certificates from Texas Solar Nova?
At least two other manufacturers, which makes the complex look less like a single offtake and more like a certificate shop. A week before the Toyota Boshoku deal, Leap records Clearway signing a 12-year agreement with SKF, the bearings maker, for a portion of the certificates from a 452 MW solar farm under construction in Kent County, Texas, matching Texas Solar Nova's size and location. That deal also starts in 2026, also uses Green-e certified certificates, and also lets the buyer reach 100 percent renewable electricity across its US and Canadian sites.
In April 2024, Leap records Lonza signing three certificate purchase agreements for 235,000 certificates a year from Texas Solar Nova 1 and 2, again starting in January 2026 and again covering all of the buyer's current US electricity use.
The common thread is the adviser. Schneider Electric supported both Toyota Boshoku and SKF in choosing the project and negotiating the terms. When one adviser brings several mid-sized corporate buyers to the same seller with near-identical terms, the result looks like a standard product: a 12-year certificate strip with a 2026 start date, sized to whatever each buyer's annual consumption happens to be.
Why sell certificates in slices rather than one large contract?
Because it lets the developer reach buyers who would never sign a full power contract. A virtual power purchase agreement, where the buyer takes on the price risk of the project's output, suits large technology companies with treasury teams and big electricity bills. Manufacturers like Toyota Boshoku, SKF and Lonza want the renewable claim without the market exposure. Certificate-only deals give them that.
For Clearway, slicing the certificates across several buyers spreads counterparty risk and lets it price each slice separately. Because the buyers take certificates rather than power, the electricity itself stays free to be sold separately. The cost is term length. Twelve years is short by US standards, which means the certificate revenue runs out well before the end of a solar farm's working life.
The construction finance was already in place before these buyers arrived. Leap records $416 million of debt for the project in October 2022, and a further $821.5 million of credit facilities for Clearway from a bank consortium in August 2023 for its US projects. The certificate deals came after the build, not before it, which suggests they were a source of extra revenue rather than the contracts that made the project bankable.
Enerdatics records 159 US solar PPAs announced in 2024. Of the 58 that disclose a term, the median length is 15 years, and only seven run for exactly 12 years. Two of those seven are the SKF and Toyota Boshoku certificate deals on the same Texas complex. Longer terms are common elsewhere in the same market: Ørsted's Bloomberg and UnitedHealth Group contracts on its Mockingbird Solar Center in Texas run for 15 years, and CPS Energy's Exodus 1 solar contract runs for 25.
What does the deal signal for US corporate solar buying?
It signals that the corporate market has two tiers. At the top, technology companies sign large virtual PPAs for hundreds of megawatts at a time. Below them sits a broad group of manufacturers buying certificates to meet emissions targets, in smaller volumes and on shorter terms, often through the same few advisers.
The Toyota Group shows both tiers at once. Toyota Motor signed a virtual PPA for 100 MW of a Martin County solar plant in 2023, and Toyota Motor North America signed one for the 159 MW Norton solar project in Texas in August 2024. Toyota Boshoku, a supplier within the same group, took the certificate route instead. The likelier difference is not ambition but balance sheet and appetite for power price risk.
For developers, the Texas Solar Nova model is a way to monetise environmental attributes from an already-financed asset. For buyers, it is a quick route to a 100 percent renewable claim. The question both will face in 2038, when these 12-year terms expire, is whether certificate prices then justify renewing or whether buyers will want the project's power as well.
Frequently asked questions
What did Toyota Boshoku America sign with Clearway Energy Group? A 12-year agreement, announced in February 2024, to buy a portion of the renewable energy certificates from the Texas Solar Nova 1 solar farm, starting in 2026.
How large is the Texas Solar Nova solar complex? Texas Solar Nova is a two-phase 452 MW solar complex in Texas developed by Clearway Energy Group. The first phase was completed in December 2023.
Who advised Toyota Boshoku America on the Clearway agreement? Schneider Electric supported Toyota Boshoku America in selecting the project and negotiating the agreement.
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