Green light for California utilities to buy 616MW solar power

September 7, 2010

Southern California Edison will buy 550MW of solar power from two very large First Solar solar photovoltaic power projects

California’s two biggest investor-owned utilities have been given the green light to buy 616 megawatts of renewable energy.

Southern California Edison will buy 20 years worth of output from two giant solar photovoltaic plants being developed by First Solar, Inc.

Pacific Gas and Electric will take power from a large solar PV facility being developed by Alpine Suntower LLC, a subsidiary of NRG Energy, again for a 20 year period.

The companies won approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, which said the contracts would help the state meet its renewable energy goals.

The two First Solar power plants set to supply power to SCE are the Desert Sunlight and Desert Stateline projects, located in Desert Center and San Bernardino, California.

These plants, respectively, will provide 250MW and 300MW of generating capacity from 2015. The Desert Sunlight project is being fast-tracked by the Bureau of Land Management regarding its permitting, and is in line for federal stimulus funding.

Benchmark

The Commission said the costs to ratepayers from the contracts would not exceed the “market price referent”, a benchmark set that estimates the cost of building new fossil fuel generating capacity would cost during the same time period.

The Alpine Suntower facility is a 66MW project being developed in Riverside County, California, set to begin providing power in 2013.

California’s utilities are currently chasing a 20% renewable electricity target for the end of this year, and potentially a 33% target for 2020.