Duke Energy Renewables has brought online its 150MW North Rosamond photovoltaic installation in California.
The plant, in Kern County, is the largest solar project in Duke Energy Renewables’ fleet.
The energy generated from North Rosamond solar is being sold to Southern California Edison under a 15-year agreement.
The project, which Duke acquired from a subsidiary of Clearway Energy Group in April 2019, employed as many as 500 individuals during the peak construction period.
Duke Energy Renewables president Rob Caldwell said: “North Rosamond is a great addition to our growing solar portfolio.
“California is a leader in renewable energy, and we’re pleased to support the state’s efforts by continuing to provide cost-efficient renewable energy to meet residents’ needs.”
The plant, which has over 477,000 solar panels installed, is the developer’s sixth solar generation facility in Kern County.
The facility’s design, procurement of PV modules, inverters, balance of plant systems as well as project construction was carried out by First Solar Electric California’s engineering, procurement and construction subsidiary under a fixed-price agreement.
The US Bancorp Community Development Corporation, the tax credit division of US Bank, M&T Bank’s Commercial Equipment Finance Group and The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America provided tax equity financing to the project.
CIT’s Power and Energy group led a consortium of lending institutions that provided construction loan and investment tax credit bridge loan facilities to fund equipment, engineering, construction and other costs needed to achieve final completion of the project.
These facilities will be converted to a single term loan facility that will be used to finance the project over the next 15 years.