TrueSolar Solutions to Manage Largest Solar Power Plant

Southern California Edison will buy the electricity from California facility.

Southern California Edison (SCE) has agreed to purchase solar power for its customers from a yet-to-be built photovoltaic array that will be run by TrueSolar Solutions. The array, to be built on a 40-acre site by TrueSolar and Tucson, Ariz.-based Global Solar, will be the world's largest, according to a Dec. 4 SCE announcement. SCE has an agreement to buy five megawatts (MW) from TrueSolar, which is owned by a subsidiary of UniSource Energy Corp. (NYSE: UNS).

Construction at the site near Barstow, Calif. is slated to begin in early 2004. The PV panels should be supplying energy to the grid by the end of 2004.

"Until now, this particular renewable energy technology has been used in small, limited applications such as individual customer rooftops. For the first time in California this project will elevate the limited use of rooftop PV energy to the same category as traditional forms of bulk power generation," states Lars Bergmann, SCE's director of qualifying facilities contracts, in the announcement.

Meanwhile, Fresno, Calif., city officials have approved a plan to build $4.7 million of solar arrays on city-owned buildings, and Austin Energy in Texas has announced plans to develop 15 MW of solar generating capacity by 2007.