Sharp Electronics has signed a supply agreement for the 58MW (DC) Avenal photovoltaic solar power facility in California.
Avenal consists of three adjacent projects, all located on agricultural land near the city of Avenal in Kings County, Central California.
The Avenal Solar Power Facility was developed by Eurus Energy, a global renewable energy development company and is jointly owned by Eurus and NRG Solar, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy.
All three projects will utilize thin film solar modules from Sharp.
Ryan Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quanta Services, will perform engineering, procurement and construction for the project.
The power produced by Avenal, enough to power approximately thirty six thousand homes when operating at peak capacity, will be purchased by PG&E under 20-year power purchase agreements approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
Construction on the first two projects, Sun City (25MW DC) and Sand Drag (24MW DC) will begin immediately and a third, Avenal Park (8MW DC), is expected to begin construction soon thereafter.
When all three are commissioned in mid 2011, they will displace over 225,000 pounds of NOx, 630,000 pounds of SOx and 70,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.
The Sharp thin-film solar panels utilized for the project feature Sharp’s tandem-junction design that captures a wider part of the solar spectrum.
The panels will be manufactured in the Sharp plant in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan.