Tuesday saw two major announcements relating to US-based solar giant, SunEdison.
In the first, SunEdison has announced it will build and operate a 14-megawatt solar farm in Clark County, Nevada for Southern Nevada Water.
Southern Nevada Water supplies water to Las Vegas and other communities in the region. With the addition of the SunEdison facility, it will source around 18 percent of its electricity from renewable sources.
The arrangement will occur under a 20 year power-purchase agreement (PPA).
“When compared with traditional power production from fossil fuels, this solar facility will also save more than 100 million gallons of water and contribute to the sustainability of our community,” said John Entsminger, Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager.
Bob Powell, President, North America at SunEdison, says the project will demonstrate how cost effective solar solutions can be developed to suit almost any location.
“This ground-mounted facility will be built around a transmission and pipeline infrastructure that is quite complex — if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere,” he said.
Construction of the solar farm will begin in early 2015 with commercial operations expected to commence later next year.
Closer to home, it was also revealed on Tuesday that SunEdison is about to make its presence felt in Australia – and in a very big way.
As we mentioned earlier today, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has announced it will provide finance of up to $70 million to SunEdison to establish innovative new financing programs for the installation of commercial and residential solar panel systems in Australia. The program will make solar more accessible to Australians who, for whatever reason, have been unable to access the benefits of solar power to date.
Bloomberg describes SunEdison as the best-performing solar company this year, climbing 71 percent in the 17-member Bloomberg Intelligence Global Large Solar Energy Index.
Globally, SunEdison has developed more than 883 MW of solar energy capacity and was the first solar company to commercialize the Power Purchase Agreement, which eliminates the need for capital outlay from customers.
