US state regulators approve Tucson Electric Power’s community solar scheme

30 July 2010

The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) in the US has approved Tucson Electric Power’s (TEP) plan to provide its customers with locally-generated solar power.

TEP said it will make 150kWh shares of solar energy available for about $3 per month to participants through its local community programme before 2011.

The programme will use photovoltaic (PV) solar systems including an array that will be built at the University of Arizona’s Science and Technology Park later this year.

‘The Bright Tucson Community Solar Program will make it easy for customers to shrink their carbon footprint while helping us reduce our community’s reliance on fossil-fueled power,’ said Paul Bonavia, chairman, president and CEO of TEP and its NYSE-listed parent company, UniSource Energy.

TEP claims the programme offers protection against future energy cost increases and insulates participants from the impact of new carbon taxes and rising power rates, sticking at a fixed rate for 20 years.

Since each block offsets the cost of an equivalent amount of traditional generation, the price premium paid by participants would effectively be reduced if traditional charges increase, it added.

The company said the programme was designed to parallel the benefits of installing solar arrays subsidised by its SunShare initiative. Each 150kWh energy block is comparable to the typical monthly output of a 1kW SunShare solar array.

Just as solar array owners earn credit for any excess energy their systems provide to TEP’s local distribution grid through the company’s existing solar programme, Bright Tucson Community Solar Program participants will receive credits on future bills if their purchased energy shares exceed their electric use during a billing period, the company said.

Power from the project will be provided by a 1.6MW single-axis tracking PV array that will be built this year at the UA Science and Technology Park by Solon, a Tucson-based solar manufacturer and system developer.

Future demands would be met through new solar power systems located in the Tucson metropolitan area, the company said.

The Bright Tucson Community Solar Program will be funded in part by an ACC-approved surcharge intended to support the state’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES), which calls on utilities to increase their use of renewable energy each year until such resources represent 15 per cent of their power by 2025.

TEP said it is pursuing the RES goals through a combination of utility-owned installations, purchased power contracts and distributed PV systems and solar water heaters.

TEP also said it will add 1.8MW of generating capacity this year to its 4.6MW Springerville Generating Station solar module.

It has additionally agreed to purchase the output of a dozen new solar power systems, a landfill gas generation project and a new wind farm that together would generate nearly 190MW, which are being built by private developers and are scheduled to come online in 2011 and 2012 pending ACC approval.

Copyright © 2010 NewNet

Tags: solar

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