Recurrent Energy, California Utility In Solar Pact
Date: 03-Feb-10
Country: US
Author: Laura Isensee
LOS ANGELES - Solar power company Recurrent Energy said on Tuesday it signed long-term power contracts with California utility Southern California Edison for electricity generated by 50 megawatts of small-scale solar power systems.
Financial terms of the deal were not released.
The deal follows other moves toward small-scale solar power by utilities in California, which is the largest solar market in the United States and faces a state mandate to obtain a third of its power from renewable resources by 2020.
California utility PG&E Corp in January partnered with solar power installer SolarCity -- whose backers include U.S. solar panel maker First Solar Inc -- for $60 million in tax equity financing to install more than 1,000 solar systems on homes and businesses.
"It's a pretty big indicator of the potential of distributed scale solar to really be relevant in the broader renewable energy mix," Recurrent's Chief Executive Arno Harris said in an interview.
Harris said smaller solar power systems are easier to push through the regulatory process and can be sized to meet available transmission, avoiding some of the challenges faced by larger utility-scale solar power systems.
Under the deal with Southern California Edison, Recurrent will build two ground-mounted solar arrays in Kern County and another one in San Bernardino County.
Their combined capacity will total 50 MW and construction is expected to start and finish in 2012.
Harris said that Recurrent has yet to select a solar panel supplier for the projects.
Privately held Recurrent, which is backed by Hudson Clean Energy Partners, focuses on small-scale projects of up to 20 megawatts. The developer has a pipeline of more than 1 gigawatt of projects planned in the United States, Canada and Europe.
Southern California Edison is a unit of Edison International.
Shares of Edison International were up 17 cents or 0.5 percent at $33.83 in trading on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
