The California Public Utilities Commission has approved Pacific Gas and Electric’s (PG&E) 20-year deal to buy power from SunPower’s 100MW Henrietta solar farm.
Manufacturer SunPower’s solar project will be constructed near Lemoore Station, California and is expected to begin producing power in October 2016.
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Financial details were not disclosed at the meeting last week in San Francisco, reported Bloomberg.
Environmental campaign body the Sierra Club last month dubbed PG&E as one of California utilities “biggest money wasters”, due to its outdated business practices by using paper bills and through dirty energy projects.
Sierra Club said PG&E charges its solar customers a US$30 per month fee compared with US$3 for Southern California Edison. However, a PG&E spokesman disputed the data used by the Sierra Club: “About 80% of our customers are billed automatically. But even for customers who aren't billed automatically there's no surcharge or standing charge, or additional charge.
Furthermore, PG&E announced last week that it had been named one of the nation's three most sustainable large utilities by market research group Target Rock Advisors, and has also been included in Target Rock's 2013 Sustainable Utility Leaders Index. This is the second time the utility has been included in the annual index, which is based on performance in three categories of sustainability – economic, environmental and social.