Southern California Edison Buys 20 Years of Solar Power for Less than Natural Gas

[jpak]

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/02/01/sce-buys-20-years-of-solar-power-for-less-than-natural-gas/

Southern California Edison has selected 250 MW worth of solar bids from companies able to produce solar electricity for 20 years for less money annually than the 20 year levelized cost of energy of a combined-cycle natural gas turbine power plant.

SCE’s bidding process for smaller renewable projects is smart. These small projects do not face the multi-year bureaucratic delays for extensive reviews, like most utility-scale solar, so each small unit can be built as quickly as normal commercial rooftop solar projects. They are made up of multiple distributed solar installations of under 20 MW, which in combination total a power plant-sized 250 MW.

The utility already gets more than 19% of its electricity from renewable sources, placing it in the lead between California’s three big utilities to reach the Renewable Energy Standard requirement to get 20% of its electricity from renewables (which excludes large hydro and nuclear) by 2013.

This year SCE had put out a request for bids to get 250 MW of just solar power, made up of multiple smaller rooftop arrays. Fremont-based Solyndra was one of the early bidders to be accepted. Solyndra will supply 20 years of power, with its unique cylindrical solar panels, to be installed by its subsidiary, Photon Solar.

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:thumbsup:

[tabatha]

1. I get my electricty from SCE.

[Gregorian]

3. I have a So. Cal. Edison line truck in my bedroom

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Uploaded with http://imageshack.us>ImageShack.us

[Kolesar]

2. innovative cylindrical CIGS thin film solar modules

...The company expects to triple its manufacturing output once the first 250MW of capacity ramps up. It has almost a billion in VC funding for its innovative easy-install tubular CIGS thin film modules.

SCE is the most renewably-powered of California’s three major utilities, and closest (at 18%) to reaching the first goal of 20% by 2010.

Like PG&E, the utility is meeting part of its renewable energy standard (RES) by utilizing distributed rooftop power in multiple small projects, because these can come on line faster – being easier to permit than larger (but more efficient) desert projects.

For example, having just awarded the contract, it is expected that the first of Solyndra/Photon Solar’s 15 mini projects will be online in six months, by January 2011, with the remaining sites plugging in by the end of the each of the subsequent three months.:thumbsup:

http://cleantechnica.com/2010/07/31/solyndra-gets-biggest-chunk-of-sces-250-mw-distributed-solar-project/