8minute Solar Energy is to sell electricity to the Clean Power Alliance from the 400MW Rexford 1 solar plus storage project in California under a 15-year power purchase agreement.
The project in Tulare County will also include 180MW of energy storage, which means it will reliably deliver renewable energy to the grid day or night or on cloudy days, the company said.
Rexford 1, which is scheduled to be operational in 2023, will be constructed on private, low-productivity disturbed farmland.
Construction, which will begin in early 2022, will create over 400 union jobs and approximately one thousand indirect jobs, in addition to contributing more than $200m to the local economy over the life of the project.
8minute chief executive Tom Buttgenbach said: “The recent blackouts and continued wildfires in California offer sobering proof of the urgent need for more renewable and reliable energy generation that both fortifies our grid and fights climate change – and large-scale solar paired with energy storage is the most efficient, lowest-cost way to achieve just that.
“We are proud to partner with Clean Power Alliance, the largest clean choice energy provider in California.
“Our new generation of solar-plus-storage power plants are the future of energy – replacing an aging fleet of fossil fuel power plants with more economical and cleaner solutions and creating good jobs when they are needed most.
“This partnership is yet another example of California taking the lead on next-generation technology, and we expect to build a lot more solar and energy storage centres across the US.”
Clean Power Alliance executive director Ted Bardacke said: “Solar-plus-storage is not only the cleanest way to increase grid reliability, it’s also the smartest and most cost-effective.
“We are excited to partner on a project of this scale with 8minute, a trusted Los Angeles-based developer that shares our commitment to accelerating the clean energy transition in California.”