SunEdison, Inc. (NYSE: SUNE) has been awarded an additional five major solar projects in South Africa totaling 371 megawatts.
The solar PV facilities are to be constructed in the Northern Cape and North West Provinces. Combined, the power plants are expected to generate enough electricity to supply the needs of the equivalent of more than 200,000 South African homes.
Eskom will purchase the electricity generated under a 20-year solar power purchase agreement (solar PPA); an arrangement pioneered by SunEdison.
The projects will deliver much more than clean, renewable power at predictable pricing.
“Building on SunEdison’s previous commitment to employment and social programmes in our host communities, the five projects awarded will offer local enterprise development, skills development and procurement programmes,” said Pashupathy Gopalan, SunEdison president, Asia Pacific.
These projects fall under South Africa’s Renewable Energy IPP Procurement (REIPPP) initiative. The program has been set up to contribute towards a target of 3,725 megawatts of clean power, socio-economic and environmentally sustainable growth, and to stimulate the renewable industry in South Africa.
Just last month, SunEdison was also awarded an 86 megawatt solar farm project, the Droogfontein 2 solar PV facility, under the same Department of Energy programme.
Since entering the South African market in 2011, SunEdison has developed and operates 130 MW of utility scale solar power in the country. Add to that the 457 MW recently awarded and SunEdison has rapidly evolved into one of the leading solar providers in sub-Saharan Africa.
In other recent SunEdison-related news, the company’s yieldco; TerraForm Power (NASDAQ: TERP), announced it had acquired 23 MW of operating distributed solar farms in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. All are operating under long term power purchase agreements struck with various commercial and municipal entities.
“This acquisition demonstrates TerraForm’s continued leadership in the distributed generation segment and depth of utility relationships which continue to accelerate our growth trajectory,” said Alex Hernandez, Chief Financial Officer of TerraForm Power .
TerraForm currently has a portfolio of 1,675 megawatts capacity of renewable energy projects.
