PG&E To Add 50 MW Of Utility Owned Solar Generation

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has selected two companies to develop three solar farms that will combine to generate 50 MW of renewable energy in California.

In separate announcements both Cupertino Electric Inc. and Q-Cells SE said that they had been selected to design and build solar farms as part of PG&E's 250 MW utility-owned generation (UOG) program. The UOG program is part of a larger PG&E solar initiative called the Solar PV Program. Approved in April 2010 by the California Public Utilities Commission, under the program PG&E will install 250 megawatts of utility-owned solar photovoltaic capacity at a rate of 50 MW per year and will execute power purchase contracts up to 250 MW from solar developers.

For the 2012 portion of the UOG program PG&E has selected Cupertino Electric's Energy Alternatives Division to design and build a 20 MW solar farm in Huron, California and Q-Cells North America will build both a 10 MW and a 20 MW installation in California's Central Valley.

For San Jose-based Cupertino Electric this is the second time the company has been selected to develop projects for the UOG program. Last month the company completed construction of both a 20 MW solar farm in Helm and a 15 MW solar farm in Five Points. It took Cupertino Electric just five months to construct facilities.

This is the first contract between the California utility and German-based Q-cells SE. Q-cells entered the North American solar market in 2010 winning utility-scale development projects in Ontario, Canada including the 10 MW Starwood SSM3 solar currently construction. The company claims to have 200 MW of solar generation in its North American pipeline.

All three solar installations are expected to be online mid-2012.

Image Credit: Mountain/\Ash via Flickr.