US firm First Wind has secured regulatory clearance for 20-years of PPA agreement to construct 100 MW of five solar projects in Idaho.
Idaho Public Utilities Commission has granted last week the approval for contracts between First Wind and the Idaho Power Company.
The five solar plants will be located at Idaho’s southern counties of Ada, Elmore, Owyhee and Power and the commercial operation from each facility is expected to begin by the end of 2016.
Idaho Power will purchase the power produced by the facilities which will have a combined production capacity of 250,000 MWh annually, enough to supply electricity for about 30,000 homes.
The average levelized rate for the projects is about 6.3 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) and the value of the five contracts is approximately $322.5 million over 20 years.
However, Idaho energy regulators were concerned at the time of approving contracts that the federal law, namely Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) that support the five contracts may force the utilities to buy unwanted energy.
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“These five projects will deliver clean, renewable solar energy to homes and businesses in Idaho at a cost-competitive price,” says First Wind chief executive Paul Gaynor.
So far, no large-scale solar power plants had been established in Idaho, which depends mainly on hydroelectric dams to generate around 60 percent of its electricity till 2013.
Currently, First Wind operates four small solar projects in Massachusetts with additional projects developments in Hawaii and Utah.
A moment ago, SunEdison announced that Terraform has acquired 21 U.S. distributed generation (DG) solar power plants comprising 26 MW from SunEdison for $47 million.
Sabeena Wahid
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