Both the companies have inked power purchase agreements (PPAs) for power generated by four projects in California, Nevada and Arizona.
The four projects involved in the deal are the 150MW North Rosamond and 100MW Willow Springs solar projects in California; 100MW Sunshine Valley facility in Nevada and 150MW Sun Streams solar project in Arizona.
All the four projects are expected to become operational by the end of 2019.
With these agreements, SCE has 2.2GWof solar capacity under contract from projects developed or built by First Solar.
First Solar US West project development vice president Brian Kunz said: "As an early off-taker, SCE was visionary in their inclusion of utility-scale solar in their energy mix. Their commitment to providing rate-payers with clean, affordable renewable energy continues with this set of agreements."
SCE signed its first PPA for First Solar’s 21MW Blythe solar project in 2009. The utility also has a long-term agreement for 250MW of capacity of the 550MW Desert Sunlight solar project in Desert Center, California, which was commissioned in 2014.
Additionally, SCE has signed contracts for other projects currently in construction, including the Desert Stateline project in California and the Silver State South project in Nevada.
First Solar’s subsidiary skytron energy will be providing its monitoring and supervision systems for Strata Solar’s 200 projects totaling more than 1.4GW in the US by mid 2016.
The solar PV projects include retrofits as well as newly built plants with capacities ranging from 1MW to 80MW.
Image: SCE will buy 500MW of solar power from four projects in the US. Photo: courtesy of graur codrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
