The board of directors of California-based East Bay Community Energy, a community choice aggregator, on July 17 approved three agreements for 112 megawatts of power from a new solar facility, along with 7.5 MW of battery energy storage, to be built in Kern and Alameda Counties, Calif.
The projects build upon 213.5 MW of new renewable energy projects and 50 MW of energy storage approved by the EBCE board through four contracts in June.
The seven agreements combined total 325.5 MW of new renewable energy generation and 57.5 MW of energy storage.
Two of the new agreements expand the Oakland Clean Energy Initiative (OCEI), which aims to replace the 40-year-old Oakland Power Plant with clean energy resources. The two storage projects will provide EBCE with local resource adequacy.
One project will provide 7 MW of resource adequacy from energy storage through an agreement with esVolta, LP and is contingent on a joint purchasing effort with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).
Another project with Sunrun will be to develop several megawatts of solar and more than two megawatt-hours of batteries on more than 500 low-income housing units by 2022. This will deliver 500 kilowatts of grid reliability capacity to EBCE over a 10-year contracted period as a standalone agreement.
“The EBCE and Sunrun project represents a leading example in the United States of home solar and battery systems directly contributing to the replacement of a retiring fossil fuel-fired power peaker plant,” EBCE said in a news release.
The third agreement is a power purchase agreement for 112 MW of solar energy from a new installation in Kern County. In addition to the solar PPA, the developer, Clearway Energy Group, has also agreed to offer EBCE an exclusive right to purchase output from a 43-MW wind project in Alameda County.
EBCE is a not-for-profit public agency that operates a community choice energy program for Alameda County and eleven incorporated cities, serving more than 550,000 residential and commercial customers throughout the county. EBCE initiated service in June 2018 and is one of 19 CCA programs operating in California.
Association offers new CCA program membership category
The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.
