Southern California Edison announced a solar buying spree and Bay Area companies are the big winners. SunPower has signed contracts to build three projects totaling 711 megawatts and sell the power produced to the Southern California utility.
The projects are some of the country’s largest solar panel projects and will go online between 2014 and 2016.
San Jose-based SunPower has a large office in Pt. Richmond, where its project development arm is based.
Its three projects will be located in Rosamond and Los Banos.
San Francisco-based Fotowatio Renewable Ventures also landed four contracts with Southern California Edison to supply power from 120 megawatts worth of solar projects — or enough to power 78,000 homes — in Los Angeles and Kern counties. All are scheduled for completion in 2013.
Southern California Edison is the largest investor-owned public utility in Southern California.
According to state law, the three investor-owned utilities, Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, were required to get 20 percent of the power they supply from renewable sources by the end of last year. None of the three met that requirement. Southern California Edison says it’s delivering about 17 percent of its power from renewable sources.
Former state Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order, requiring utilities to get 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020.
