California Public Utilities Commission approves Edison solar photovoltaic roof programme

22 June 2009

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has approved a solar photovoltaic programme for Southern California Edison. The programme will result in the deployment of 500MW of solar photovoltaic on existing commercial rooftops in Edison’s service territory.

Edison will own, install, operate, and maintain 250MW of solar photovoltaic projects, which will primarily consist of one to two megawatt rooftop systems. The remaining 250MW will be installed, owned, and operated by independent, non-utility solar providers selected through a competitive process.

Prior to today’s decision, utility solar programs in the one to two megawatt range had limited participation in the California Solar Initiative or Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) programme. Edison’s programme creates a new avenue for developing such smaller sized solar projects.

‘This programme represents a valuable complement to the existing renewable procurement efforts we have underway, given the significant permitting challenges large scale renewables face, both in terms of transmission and the generating facilities themselves,’ said CPUC President Michael R Peevey. ‘It represents an important hedging strategy by allowing for the deployment of distributed resources that, while somewhat more expensive than the large scale renewable projects that are the primary focus of the RPS program, offer a much higher level of certainty in terms of when they will come online.’

Commissioner John A Bohn, author of the decision, added, ‘This decision is a major step forward in diversifying the mix of renewable resources in California and spurring the development of a new market niche for large scale rooftop solar applications. Unlike other generation resources, these projects can get built quickly and without the need for expensive new transmission lines. And since they are built on existing structures, these projects are extremely benign from an environmental standpoint, with neither land use, water, or air emission impacts. By authorising both utility-owned and private development of these projects we hope to get the best from both types of ownership structures, promoting competition as well as fostering the rapid development of this nascent market.’

Commissioner Timothy Alan Simon, added, ‘I support this decision because it strikes a balance between promoting utility-owned generation and competitive procurement for independent energy producers, as well as distributed generation and central station solar systems. Finally, it will bring much needed economic stimulus to the Inland Empire.’

Because this is the first significant foray by a utility into ownership of renewable generation, the CPUC will carefully monitor the programme’s progress, examine ways in which the program can be improved, and fine tune the program when and where appropriate, according to a statement.

The energy generated from the project will be used to serve Edison’s retail customers and the output from these facilities will be counted towards Edison’s RPS goals, the company said. The output and capacity of the projects will not count towards the California Solar Initiative program goals.

The RPS programme requires investor-owned utilities to procure 20 per cent of their electricity sales from renewable sources by 2010. Governor Schwarzenegger subsequently established an RPS target of 33 per cent by 2020 for all retail sellers of electricity.

The California Solar Initiative has a goal to install 3,000MW of new customer solar projects by 2016.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

Tags: photovoltaic, policy, solar

This story was published on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 2:44 pm and is filed under North America, companies, policy, solar. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “California Public Utilities Commission approves Edison solar photovoltaic roof programme”

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