A ceremony was held on the weekend to formally celebrate the commencement of construction of NRG Energy’s 250 megawatt California Valley Solar Ranch, amid controversy over the project’s funding.
As we reported earlier this year, the California Valley Solar Ranch will be based on SunPower solar panels and will generate enough clean electricity to provide for the power needs of around 100,000 homes.
The project will offset the production of more than 340,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and the electricity generated will be sold to PG&E through 25-year power purchase agreements.
While the land set aside for the solar farm covers a huge area, around 70% of the site – approximately 1,294 hectares – will be permanently conserved and managed to protect a range of species.
The project will also create approximately 350 jobs over its two-year construction period and will inject $315 million into the San Luis Obispo County economy.
Upon completion, NRG and SunPower will jointly operate and maintain the solar farm for two years, after which time NRG will assume full responsibility.
While the solar farm will be a poster-child for the U.S. solar industry, it has also stirred up controversy. In a New York Times report and repeated on the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, it was claimed the American taxpayer is providing subsidies for the solar farm to the tune of around $US1.6 billion.
In a detailed rebuttal of various claims made in the NYT report, NRG points out the money is a loan guarantee and “loans received by these solar projects, such as the California Valley Solar Ranch, are indeed loans that will be repaid (with interest) for the benefit of the American taxpayer”.
NRG also states, “No solar PV projects of this scale, $1 billion and above, have gone forward without DOE assistance; these projects involve more capital than the private sector will finance.”
NRG Solar LLC, a subsidiary of NRG, says it has over 2 gigawatts of photovoltaic and solar thermal projects under development or in construction across the southwestern USA.
