New 6-MWAC solar park begins operations in Brawley, California
Brawley, CA – Today, NRG Energy and its subsidiaries celebrated the start-up of operations a 6 MWAC solar park located on the Imperial Valley Campus of San Diego State University (SDSU) in Brawley, California. The North American Development Bank (NADB) is providing a US$19.2 million loan for construction of the project, which is expected to generate more than 16,000 megawatt-hours of electricity in the first year of operation.
The electricity generated by the solar park will be purchased by Imperial Irrigation District (IID), an irrigation district and publicly-owned utility, under a 25-year power purchase agreement.
The ceremony was presided over by Randy Hickok, Senior Vice President at NRG, Jeff Brothers, President of Sol Orchard, and David E. Pearson, Dean of SDSU, Imperial Valley Campus, as well as representatives from the city of Brawley and NADB.
The ceremony was presided over by Randy Hickok, Senior Vice President at NRG, Jeff Brothers, President of Sol Orchard, and David E. Pearson, Dean of SDSU, Imperial Valley Campus, as well as representatives from the city of Brawley and NADB.
The project, certified by the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC) in March 2013, was carried out through an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Boeing and Sunora, and consisted of installing more than 25,000 polycrystalline photovoltaic modules manufactured by Trina Solar, mounted on ViaSol single-axis trackers. The solar park is interconnected to IID’s grid at a point located approximately a half mile east of the project site.
The project is expected to generate sufficient electricity for the equivalent of about 2,200 households and will help improve air quality for residents of Imperial County by displacing more than 4,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 6.5 metric tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx).
The solar park occupies approximately 40 acres of the university campus, and SDSU will have access to the facility for research and educational purposes.
To date, NADB has participated in the financing of seven solar projects in California with a combined generation capacity of 63.5 MWAC, and IID is the off-taker for three of those projects.