May 28 2009

SEPA Cites Solar Luminaries

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

I doubt Michael Phelps got bored of ascending the medals podium eight times in the Beijing Olympics. For the same reason, I doubt anyone at PG&E ever gets tired of being recognized for its industry-leading efforts to foster the deployment of solar power--even by customers who then reduce their power purchases.

The Solar Electric Power Association today cited PG&E, along with several other utilities, for outstanding contributions to solar power in the face of serious economic challenges. The association has honored PG&E at least six times previously for solar business achievement, public awareness, industry leadership and portfolio leadership.

SEPA is a non-profit association of more than 500 utilities, manufacturers, installers and other solar industry participants, whose mission is "to facilitate solutions for the use and integration of solar electric power by utilities, electric service providers, and their customers." 

In its new report on "2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings," SEPA called PG&E "the most solar integrated utility for the year 2008" based on its interconnection of 85 megawatts of new customer solar capacity--44 percent of the total recorded in its survey of participating utilities. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric ranked second and third, representing a sweep for California utilities.

As I noted last month in NEXT100, PG&E now has about 300 MW of solar capacity installed in its service area. In February, PG&E asked the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to install 500 MW of mid-sized photovoltaic projects (half utility-owned, half developer-owned). In March, PG&E signed a record deal with BrightSource Energy for 1,310 MW of solar thermal power, enough to power more than half a million homes. In April, PG&E signed a first-of-a-kind space solar deal with Solaren. And PG&E continues to be a leader in its solar partnerships with California schools and Habitat for Humanity.

In releasing SEPA's report, Executive Director Julia Hamm had some kind things to say about PG&E:

In 2008, PG&E continued to strengthen its position as the most solar-integrated electric utility in the U.S. It is impressive to see a utility take a truly diversified approach to increasing the amount of solar electricity in its portfolio. PG&E is aggressively promoting and pursuing everything from providing incentives for small customer-owned rooftop systems to owning distributed and centralized systems to purchasing the power from third party owned and operated systems. It is also invigorating to see PG&E explore all available solar technology options, which will result in a solid internal understanding of the levelized cost of energy, performance and reliability, and other critical factors related to each technology - information that becomes more and more important as the utility increases the percentage of its power supply that comes from solar electricity.

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