California-based electric utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced that it will build eight solar projects in California with a total generation capacity of 53MW.
PG&E is currently collaborating with a number of renewable-energy developers that are assisting in the development of the eight projects spread across the utility’s service area.
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The renewable-energy developers building the new projects in Northern and Central California include 8minutenergy Renewables, AES Distributed Energy, Green Light Energy Corporation, ImMODO Energy Services, Mirasol Development, Recurrent Energy and Solar Frontier Americas Development LLC.
PG&E is building these eight projects in order to meet demand for its Solar Choice programme, which allows residential and business customers to purchase up to 100% of their energy from PV power generated in PG&E’s service area.
The development of these eight PV installations will help lower the costs for homeowners and other consumers looking to go solar — even without rooftop arrays or other renewable-energy systems.
If an average household using 500 kWh of energy takes part in the Solar Choice programme at 100%, the price to participate in the programme last year was approximately US$18 per month. Now, it is about US$13 per month.
Aaron Johnson, vice president of PG&E's customer energy solutions, said: “PG&E's Solar Choice is all about giving our customers more options when it comes to clean energy. By sourcing new local solar developments in the communities we are privileged to serve, more customers who want to support California's clean energy future can now do so at a lower cost. This is a win for our customers, and a win for the state's ambitious clean energy goals.”
