MidAmerican Solar, a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings, has acquired SunPower’s 579-megawatt Antelope Valley Solar Projects.
The two projects are located in Kern and Los Angeles Counties in California and will provide clean electricity to Southern California Edison (SCE) under long-term power purchase contracts.
President of MidAmerican Renewables Bill Fehrman said the company now has a total portfolio of more than 1,830 megawatts of energy generation projects, including wind, geothermal, solar and hydro assets. Among the holdings are the 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm in San Luis Obispo County, California and a 49 percent stake in the 290-megawatt Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma County, Arizona.
“We are excited about these projects because they support our core business principle of environmental respect. We are very proud to add SunPower technology to our portfolio of projects.”
In addition to providing SunPower solar panels and tracking systems, SunPower will be in charge of engineering, procurement and construction contractor and will operate and maintain the facility.
Construction of the Antelope Valley Solar Projects is scheduled to begin in first quarter of this year, with the solar farms expected to be completed by the end of 2015. The facility will offset more than 775,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually; the equivalent to removing almost three million cars from the road over 20 years of the plant’s operation.
The projects will create an estimated 650 jobs during construction.
“As we have done at our other solar project locations, we will work hard to establish positive and productive relationships with community and county neighbors and stakeholders,” said Paul Caudill, president, MidAmerican Solar.
Based in Des Moines, Iowa, MidAmerican Renewables encompasses MidAmerican Wind, MidAmerican Geothermal, MidAmerican Solar, and MidAmerican Hydro.
In late December, MidAmerican Wind announced completion of the 168-megawatt Pinyon Pines Wind I and 132-megawatt Pinyon Pines Wind II projects near Tehachapi, California; consisting of 100 Vestas 3-megawatt V90 wind turbines.
