California solar plant big enough to power 71,000 homes

solar.calfinder.com
10 January 2011

It's being billed as the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in the Northern San Joaquin Valley, and at 1,000 acres it certainly won't have a small footprint. But the power it generates is essential to Southern California Edison (SCE) meeting the state's renewable energy mandate of 33% of electricity supplies (from renewables) by 2020

For California public utilities, of which SCE is one of the biggest, this means buying power from solar and wind developers, and the Santa Nella project, near the San Luis Reservoir, will add 110MWs (MW) to SCE's renewable energy portfolio.

The Santa Nella project, reportedly enough to power about 71,000 homes, will be built by San Jose-based SunPower Corp., which is also planning another 25-MW plant on North McHenry Avenue to help power the Modesto Irrigation District.

The Santa Nella project, whose power SCE will buy on a power purchase agreement, or PPA, is only one of seven solar purchases the utility announced this week. The others, which bring the grand total to 831MW, are in Kern and Los Angeles counties, but a newspaper report using the word "also" confuses the issue considerably, since San Joaquin is close to San Francisco, while Kern and Los Angeles counties are,....well, near Los Angeles.

In spite of being geographically challenged, however, it's clear that SCE, which serves almost 5 million customers, is leading the pack in solar power purchases - a leadership which reflects positively on the utility, which as few as five years ago was perceived by some renewable energy activists as balking at the concept of renewable energy.

That impression has now been cleared up, and as SCE VP Marc Ulrich notes, the past few years have shown impressive stats for solar PV, which is overcoming previous deficiencies to deliver clean, renewable energy that would meet market parity for both price and availability if solar power did not generate premium prices as a way of encouraging greater uptake.

The Santa Nella project is slated for former ranch land about 50 miles due east of Santa Cruz. The land is currently owned by River East Holdings, and SunPower hopes to complete the project in 2014. The only other significant solar array in the area is one by the Dept, of Veterans Affairs slated for the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery, a 136-kW solar PV array whose funds were awarded last year.