It's supposed to be a very good site.
The co won't disclose anything about costs, and PG&E won't disclose their payments. It really appears like a swap agreement based on their resolution:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_RESOLUTION/111507.htmThey do say they are allowed to get the entire cost back through rate increases, and the 775,000 panels are, according to the resolution, fixed-tilt thin-film PV panels manufactured by First Solar. That would help figuring the costs.
That stuff about pseudo-ties:
Under this scenario, referred to by the CAISO as a "dynamic transfer" or "pseudo-tie" agreement, Copper Mountain avoids having to schedule deliveries with Nevada Energy and/or the need to construct transmission to deliver energy into the CAISO control area.12 On November 30, the CAISO filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission a pseudo-tie agreement between the CAISO and El Dorado Energy.
I found more info on pseudo-ties here:
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100615007142/enI gather that it means that the new power plant will dump its output into the local grid, and the local grid will shift power to the CA local grid. Thus the actual delivered power may or may not be solar-generated.
I also found an earlier study in which they figured an average grid feed-in charge of $-30MW for the wind/solar for the outside sources due to high subsidies.
http://www.caiso.com/284c/284ca45940f50.pdf