301 Moved Permanently

---

nginx

City Switches On 487 kW Solar Array For Water Treatment Plant

The City of Kerman, Calif., has installed a 487 kW solar array to provide electricity for its wastewater treatment facility. Borrego Solar performed the engineering and construction services. Through a 20-year power purchase agreement with New York-based owner ConEdison Solutions, the solar plant will supply 70% of the plant’s electricity and generate 940 MWh of electricity annually.

According to Kerman Mayor Gary Yep, the wastewater treatment facility, which had recently undergone a $6.7 million upgrade, will enable the city of about 14,225 people to grow to 30,000.

“We took a look at our peak electric bill and decided to go solar,” Yep says.

The city estimates the solar power installation will achieve a 40% net reduction in the treatment plant’s electricity costs, which comes to a savings of more than $95,000 per year.

“There was a learning curve, including new nomenclature,” says City Manager Luis Patlan, who spearheaded the solar project for Kerman. “We had considerations of buying versus leasing. We gained a lot of technical knowledge during the process.”

Because the city was the customer, it had to follow the formalized process for approval and contracting. Patlan, who heads the city’s planning commission, had experience with previous municipal projects. He says eight proposals were received, and the city interviewed the top-five candidates. Kerman created a technical panel of engineers and officials from the water department with experience in public works to evaluate the proposals and select Borrego Solar as the winner.

Yep credits Patlan with developing a practical and economical plan for incorporating solar power into the city’s infrastructure. Yep says the solar proposal received unanimous support from the five-member city council in both the concept and final approval stages.

“The city council has four business owners,” Yep says. “We crunched the numbers, and solar made a lot of business sense.”

Under the terms of the agreement, ConEdison owns and operates the solar plant. The city thus avoided paying for the facility up front, but has an option to buy it in seven years.

Yep also notes the project was well situated from a siting standpoint. The city leased an almond orchard adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant to host the single-axis tracking ground-mounted array. The surrounding land was largely city-owned and includes a garbage disposal site. Solar fit right in.

“There was not a lot of negative reaction from the people,” he says. - Michael Puttré

 

Calif. Valley Solar
Ranch Now Online

NRG Energy Inc. and SunPower Corp. have completed the final phase of the California Valley Solar Ranch (CVSR) photovoltaic generating facility in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., bringing total electric generating capacity of the plant up to 250 MW. CVSR will sell its electricity to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) under two long-term power purchase agreements.

NRG acquired CVSR from SunPower in 2011, and the project is jointly owned with NRG Yield, which holds 48.95%. NRG’s remaining ownership of CVSR is one subject to a right of first offer agreement between NRG and NRG Yield. CVSR received a federal loan guarantee for $1.2 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office.

SunPower designed and provided engineering, procurement and construction services for the project, working with Bechtel.

Construction began in September 2011. In December 2012, the first 22 MW began delivering power to PG&E’s transmission lines. NRG and SunPower will jointly operate and maintain CVSR for two years, after which NRG will assume sole responsibility for operating the site.

The project’s design and construction approach minimized impacts to the 4,700-acre CVSR site. NRG Solar says solar arrays cover only 30% of the total site, minimizing grading and water usage.

The CVSR project had been dogged by lawsuits by environmentalists, and site impact mitigation and conservation considerations were instrumental in enabling the project to proceed.

 

Array Delivers
Trackers For Mt. Signal

Array Technologies Inc. has shipped all of its DuraTrack HZ solar trackers for the 265 MW Imperial Valley Solar I project at Mount Signal, near Calexico, Calif. The company says over 1,300 trucks were involved in the deliveries.

Array Technologies says the thin-film photovoltaic project is the largest such facility to employ tracking. The company says the trackers’ bowed racks are part of a new design that provides stability and support for frameless thin-film module applications. First Solar supplied the modules, and Santerno supplied the inverters.

Silver Ridge Power is developing Imperial Valley Solar I, with Abengoa providing construction services. The storied facility has had a number of owners and incarnations over the years.

Google made headlines in December with a $103 million investment in the project. San Diego Gas & Electric will buy the electricity from the plant under a 25-year purchase power agreement.

 

Campo Verde Solar
Facility Starts Up

The 139 MW solar photovoltaic Campo Verde Solar Facility, located in Imperial County, Calif., has begun commercial operation.

First Solar built the facility, which incorporates nearly 2.3 million of its thin-film PV modules, and sold it to Southern Co. subsidiary Southern Power in partnership with Turner Renewable Energy in April. First Solar will operate and maintain the plant.

Southern Co. will sell the electricity generated by the Campo Verde Solar Facility under a 20-year power purchase agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

The partnership of Southern and Turner has acquired five solar energy projects, including the Spectrum solar facility in Nevada, which became operational in December. The partnership plans to acquire a sixth project, the 20 MW Adobe solar facility, which is under construction in Kern County, Calif., by SunEdison and scheduled to be completed in spring 2014.

 

Fluor Completes
AVSA II In Ariz.

Fluor Corp. has completed construction of the 125 MW Arlington Valley Solar Energy II (AVSA II) facility for LS Power Group subsidiary AVSA II LLC. The project, located in Maricopa County, Ariz., began producing power from initial phase construction in May.

The AVSA II facility sits on approximately 1,160 acres of land and incorporates over 600,000 PV panels supplied by Kyocera and Hyundai. Fluor provides engineering, construction and procurement services for the project and will also provide operations and maintenance services for five years. The project has a long-term power purchase agreement with San Diego Gas & Electric.

 

ABB Receives $80M Order For 100 MW PV Plant

Switzerland-based ABB and its consortium partner, Ontario-based Bondfield Construction, have won an order from Canadian Solar Solutions to supply a 100 MW photovoltaic solar project for the Grand Renewable Energy Park in Ontario. ABB says its portion of the contract is worth about $80 million.

The plant is part of a $5 billion investment by Samsung Renewable Energy and partners to create a cluster of wind and solar power sources with the capacity to generate 1.37 GW of renewable energy.

The first of these developments includes a 100 MW PV power plant and a 150 MW wind farm. Canadian Solar Solutions is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the plant.

ABB will provide a balance-of-system package. ABB is also responsible for engineering, electrical installation, commissioning and performance testing of the plant.

Civil and mechanical installation works will be performed by Bondfield Construction.

Once fully operational in 2015, the PV power plant is expected to produce 165 GWh of electricity a year.

 

Google And KKR
Invest In PV Plants

Google and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP (KKR) are investing in six solar photovoltaic facilities that are currently being developed and will be managed by Recurrent Energy. The solar facilities include five projects in Southern California and one in Arizona that have a combined production capacity of approximately 106 MW and will provide power to three off-takers, including Southern California Edison.

Capital for the projects was provided by equity investments from Google and KKR, as well as debt financing. KKR is making the investment in this six-project portfolio from its infrastructure fund.

Google recently invested $13 million in the 265 MW Imperial Valley Solar I project at Mount Signal, near Calexico, Calif., under development by Silver Ridge Power.

In December 2011, Google and KKR invested in four Recurrent utility-scale solar projects near Sacramento, Calif.

 

SolarCity To Develop
PV Plant In Hawaii

SolarCity has been selected by utility Hawaiian Electric Co. to build a 15 MW photovoltaic system in Oahu.

According to SolarCity, the 50-acre project will be constructed on undeveloped land at the Kahe Generating Station. Hawaiian Electric will own and operate the project.

Pending regulatory approval and the completion of necessary environmental and cultural reviews, the system is expected to be operational by the end of 2015. S