California community choice aggregators Monterey Bay Community Power (MBCP) and Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) on April 21 announced that they have signed contracts for geothermal generation and solar plus battery storage.
The CCAs said that the two power purchase agreements selected from an MBCP/SVCE joint request for offers are by design complementary to each other. “Not only do geothermal facilities provide 24/7 available renewable power, they also produce their maximum energy in cooler months and provide a slightly reduced output in the hotter summer months, counteracting the solar energy output peak during long summer days,” they noted.
Also, these agreements allow both MBCP and SVCE to meet California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard which requires over 26% of renewable contracts to be over 10 years in length.
The geothermal contract is with Coso Geothermal Power Holdings. The geothermal plant, located in Inyo County, Calif., is an existing geothermal facility with an overall capacity of 270 megawatts that provides baseload power.
The contract outlines a 60/40 split between MBCP and SVCE, with MBCP receiving 67.5 MW/year and SVCE receiving 43 MW/year for the first five years. During the following 10 years, the MW/year allocation reduces to 50 and 28, respectively.
The solar plus storage energy contract jointly procured by MBCP and SVCE is with Rabbitbrush LLC. Rabbitbrush will provide 3% of both MBCP’s and SVCE’s total electricity needs through a combined capacity of 100 MW AC of solar PV and 20 MW of battery energy storage.
The contract with the plant, which is scheduled to become operational in June 2022, lasts 15 years. The Rabbitbrush project is located in Rosamond, Calif., in Kern County, home to another MBCP-SVCE joint procurement deal with BigBeau Solar, one of California’s newest and largest solar-plus-storage projects to date.
The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.
