Summit Ridge Energy Announces Solar Energy Agreement with Digital Realty to Power Data Centers in Illinois
ARLINGTON, VA, May 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Summit Ridge Energy, the nation's leading commercial solar company, announced a partnership with Digital Realty (NYSE:DLR) to purchase 5.1 megawatts (MW) of solar energy. With this purchase, Digital Realty – the largest global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data center solutions – will advance its sustainability objectives while delivering energy cost savings. This agreement includes both savings on energy costs and the purchase of renewable energy credits produced by three Summit Ridge-owned and operated commercial solar projects in Illinois. These projects are expected to be energized and interconnected with Commonwealth Edison by late 2025 to early 2026.
This partnership enables Digital Realty's Northern Illinois-based data centers to offset a portion of their energy consumption. Additionally, the newly constructed solar projects will help enhance grid resilience across Illinois while supporting economic development through the creation of hundreds of construction and manufacturing jobs.
CBRE is Digital Realty's community solar advisor and assisted in the selection of Summit Ridge based on its community solar expertise and advanced project development status.
"At Digital Realty, we are committed to advancing sustainable energy solutions that align with our global carbon reduction goals," said Aaron Binkley, Vice President of Sustainability at Digital Realty. "Collaborating with Summit Ridge Energy supports our efforts to integrate more renewable energy into our operations while also contributing to a more resilient power grid in Illinois."
"Digital Realty's commitment to purchasing solar energy highlights the growing importance of leveraging alternative energy solutions in industries that depend on reliable power. With this agreement, we're building a diversified, stronger grid while delivering tangible benefits to businesses," said Marc Fioravanti, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Summit Ridge Energy. "This partnership illustrates that solar is playing an important role in the dramatic growth of the energy needs of technology companies, including those driven by AI and increased data processing."
These projects are part of a larger initiative by Summit Ridge to support enhanced grid stability through benefits like voltage support and frequency regulation, further strengthening the local electric system. The three distributed solar farms powering Digital Realty are part of Summit Ridge's 439 MW Illinois fleet of solar assets, the largest in the state where the company has established itself as the market leader with over $3.1 billion in commercial investments made to date.
About Summit Ridge Energy
As the nation's leading commercial solar company, Summit Ridge Energy merges financial innovation and industry-leading execution to deliver locally generated energy via a more resilient and secure electric grid. This has made Summit Ridge one of the fastest-growing energy companies in America, with over 2 GW of solar power operating and in development.
Since launching in 2017, Summit Ridge has raised over $5B in project capital to finance 200+ solar farms, providing energy savings to more than 42,000 homes and businesses while contributing to American energy independence. Learn more at srenergy.com and connect with us on LinkedIn.
About Digital Realty
Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company's global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X.
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Antonya Asante Summit Ridge Energy 347-723-7231 [email protected] Business Development [email protected]