San Diego Gas & Electric has increased its solar and renewable energy portfolio pipeline with the addition of another 190MW of resources, including a 150MW PV power plant to be developed and built in the Imperial Valley. The Southern California utility and Sempra Energy unit has announced signed power purchase agreements for almost 770MW of solar generation since January.
The latest 25-year PV PPA, which must be approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, was signed with Solar Gen 2 LLC for a project that will be built in three 50MW phases on fallow land in the arid southeastern California area. The first phase is expected to begin power delivery by summer 2012.
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The project will use PV panels with single-axis tracking and is expected to generate about 361GWh/year on average over the length of the contract, which represents nearly 2% of SDG&E's renewable portfolio over a full year, the utility said.
Details on the modules and other BOS equipment to be deployed were not disclosed.
“We continue to add more diversity to the mix of green energy in our renewable portfolio,” said James P. Avery, SDG&E's senior VP of power supply. “This latest solar project will be transmitted across the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) transmission network to SDG&E and will get delivered to our customers and the Southern California region using the capacity of the Sunrise Powerlink and the help of the IID. With this agreement, we are broadening our partnership with the IID and helping to benefit the overall economy of the Imperial Valley.”
“With SDG&E's development of the Sunrise line, we and other renewable developers can take advantage of the Imperial Valley's vast solar resource to benefit all of California,” said Steve Zaminski, CEO of Solar Gen 2. “We are pleased and grateful for the confidence placed in us by both SDG&E and the IID. This project would not be possible without the leadership and vision of SDG&E's and IID's board and management.”
SDG&E also announced a one-year power contract with municipal utility Silicon Valley Power for 40 MW of electricity generated by underground steam heat. The San Diego utility began taking delivery of the geothermal power, expected to total 350GWh over the course of the year, on July 1.
