Renewable Energy News

MidAmerican Solar and SunPower installed the one millionth photovoltaic module at the Solar Star projects, co-located in Kern and Los Angeles counties in California. When complete, the 579-MW projects will have more than 1.7 million modules installed. The first solar module was installed in March 2013. The Solar Star projects are owned by MidAmerican Solar and are being constructed by SunPower, which also will provide operations and maintenance services. Construction on the projects began in 2013 and is expected to be complete by year-end 2015.

First Solar completed the sale of the 250-MW Silver State South Solar Project to a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The project is adjacent to the 50MWAC Silver State North Project, which was developed and built by First Solar and commissioned in 2012. First Solar developed and designed the Silver State South project, and will provide EPC services to NextEra. All the power from Silver State South will be sold to Southern California Edison under a long-term PPA.

Xcel Energy and SunPower signed a PPA to build a 50-MW solar power plant in Colorado's San Luis Valley. Construction of the solar power plant is contingent on the project securing all required permits, interconnection rights and financing. SunPower expects to start construction in 2015, and to achieve full commercial operation by the end of 2016. At the 320-acre site, SunPower will design and build a SunPower Oasis Power Plant system.

First Solar sold the 50-MW Macho Springs Solar Power Plant to Southern Company subsidiary Southern Power and Turner Renewable Energy. El Paso Electric has a 20-year PPA for all energy generated by the power plant. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The power plant, located on approximately 600 acres of State Trust land near Deming, New Mexico, is the state's largest solar power plant.

Abengoa completed construction of Mount Signal Solar, the 206-MW photovoltaic plant in the city of Calexico, south east of California. Abengoa was responsible for the engineering, construction and commissioning of the plant for Silver Ridge Power. The project covers 801 hectares and includes more than three million photovoltaic modules that rotate on a north-south axis tracking the path of the sun.

SunEdison partnered with Rosedale Union School District (RUSD) in Bakersfield, Calif. to install, monitor and manage 1.8 MW of solar at the district's nine schools. Solar shade canopies will be constructed in parking lots at the district's schools, taking advantage of underutilized space to produce solar energy and provide needed shade for parking. Project completion is scheduled by the end of the year. SunEdison will install, monitor and maintain the solar system at no additional expense to the district.

Recurrent Energy won an award from Austin Energy for 150 MW of solar capacity in West Texas. The power will be delivered to Austin Energy pursuant to a 20-year PPA. The 150-MW solar facility will be completed in 2016 and will be Texas’ largest single solar power plant.

Georgia Power plans to build, own and operate three separate solar generation facilities on U.S. Army bases in Georgia. The generation facilities, each capable of producing approximately 30 MW of solar energy, will be located at Fort Stewart near Savannah, Fort Benning near Columbus and Fort Gordon near Augusta. Scheduled to be completed by the end of 2016, the facilities are expected to be the largest solar generation facilities operating on U.S. military bases. 

Suzlon Group (Suzlon) completed the sale of the 240 MW Big Sky Wind Farm in Illinois to EverPower Wind Holdings, which was previously announced on April 9. Suzlon Group had recently acquired the Big Sky wind farm from Edison Mission Energy via their fully owned US-based subsidiary Suzlon Wind Energy Corp (SWECO). Suzlon and EverPower also agreed to a seven year service agreement, keeping SWECO involved in the project at the operations level.

ABB introduced a new grid feeding monitoring relay for wind applications, as part of the AWEA Windpower 2014 conference and exhibition. The new low-voltage grid feeding monitoring relay CM-UFD.M33, also known as the Grid Tie Relay, is a component that protects wind turbines from unstable grid activity or faults by disconnecting the electric energy source from the grid. The relay monitors voltage and frequency in single and three phase grids and trips the coupling switch when electrical values are not within set parameters.