As the Sept. 30 deadline for closing loan guarantees approaches, the US Department of Energy has finalized another one, this time for $337 million for the 150MW (AC) Mesquite Solar 1 power plant in Arizona. The project is owned by Sempra Energy, which has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell the electricity generated to Pacific Gas & Electric.
The project, which will be built by EPC lead Zachry Holdings, will see more than 800,000 Suntech crystalline-silicon PV modules installed, with inverters supplied by Advanced Energy, marking the first utility-scale plant in the US to feature the company’s transformer-less, liquid-cooled technology. Schletter has been contracted to provide the mounting systems for the arrays.
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The power plant will be located in Maricopa County, Arizona, about 45 miles west of Phoenix, and is expected to generate approximately 350,000MWh of electricity in its first full year of production, said to be enough to power some 31,000 homes. Some 400 construction jobs will also be created.
When DOE announced the conditional commitment for the Mesquite project loan guarantee in June, the amount was stated at $359.1 million.
Sempra said previously that Mesquite Solar 1 will be the first part of what is planned to be a 700MW project. The initial phase construction is under way, with completion scheduled for 2013.