The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Thursday approved a program proposed by Southern California Edison (SCE) that aims to put 500 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic solar on existing commercial rooftops in SCE’s service territory.
SCE is an Edison International (NYSE:EIX) utility company.
SCE will own, install, operate, and maintain 250 MW of solar PV projects, which will primarily consist of one- to two-MW rooftop systems. The remaining 250 MW will be installed, owned, and operated by independent, non-utility solar providers selected through a competitive process.
Edison’s program creates a new avenue for developing smaller sized PV projects, CPUC said in a statement.
"This program 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 Renewables Portfolio Standard program, offer a much higher level of certainty in terms of when they will come online."
Added Commissioner John A. Bohn, author of the decision, "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."
The first project in the program–a 2-MW system in Fontana, California–was completed in December 2008 by First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR).
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