Southern California Edison to Buy 10MW of Solar PV Capacity from Rooftop Projects to be Built by Borrego Solar

Borrego Solar Systems Inc., a leading designer, developer, installer and financier of grid-tied solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, today announced that Southern California Edison (SCE) has agreed to buy nearly 10 MW of solar PV capacity from rooftop Wholesale Distributed Generation (WDG) projects that Borrego Solar will build.

SCE has signed five 20-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) to buy the energy from the projects.

The systems will be located on industrial warehouse buildings in Southern California. Borrego Solar will complete the development of the portfolio and do the Engineering, Procurement and Construction.

These projects are part of SCE's fourth solicitation under the Solar Photovoltaic Program (SPVP) for Independent Power Producers, a five-year program to procure 125 MW of primarily rooftop PV projects. Borrego Solar has had a lot of success with the SPVP program, having four projects totaling 7 MW under the program in operation. These new PPAs will bring Borrego Solar's total participation in the program to nine projects totaling 17 MW.

"Covering the rooftops of large industrial warehouses with solar is a great utilization of space, environmental resources, and plays into the distributed benefits of photovoltaics" said Brian von Moos, vice president of utility project development at Borrego Solar. "Instead of disturbing pristine land to build new power sources, we can make use of vast amounts of rooftop space where we don't have to worry about further impacting the environment to deliver clean renewable energy directly where it's consumed. I only wish more utilities would follow SCE's lead in pursing these types of projects."

The program is one of the only utility procurement solicitations that specifically targets rooftop-sited WDG projects in the country. The program favors siting projects on top of large industrial warehouses where 1 MW to 5MW of solar can be installed and the energy generated sold directly to the utility. Selling directly to the utility allows for greater economies of scale because the entire rooftop can be covered with solar and it provides greater certainty in monetizing the energy—compared to dealing with a tenant, who may go out of business or vacate the property once the lease is over.

Once fully operational, the Borrego Solar portfolio will generate enough energy to power approximately 3,672 homes and offset 17,584 tons of carbon annually, which is the equivalent of taking 3,702 cars off the road for a year.