California Community Power, a Joint Powers Authority that conducts joint power procurement on behalf of nine California community choice aggregators, and CADEMO Corp., a developer of a first of its kind 60-megawatt floating offshore wind project off the California coast, have executed a Memorandum of Understanding to facilitate the advancement of CADEMO’s project, they said on May 2.
The MOU is intended to establish a collaborative engagement between California Community Power and CADEMO to support the development of the CADEMO project as California’s first offshore wind project.
The project will be located off the coast of Vandenberg Space Force Base, near Lompoc, in California state waters.
It is targeting a commercial operation date in 2028, which would position it to come online several years ahead of other planned offshore wind projects proposed in federally leased waters off the California coast.
The project is expected to include four turbines, totaling 60 MW, and is expected to produce about 200 GWh/year of renewable energy.
Through the MOU engagement, California Community Power “aims to learn about the drivers of key costs in offshore wind development to build support for appropriate policies that balance local investment, jobs and community considerations, greater renewable energy penetration, and electricity affordability,” a news release related to the MOU noted.
California Community Power and CADEMO anticipate, in collaboration with California Community Power’s CCA members, engaging with local communities to ensure the CADEMO project “gets built right” by facilitating community stakeholder sessions and acknowledging and integrating the perspectives of various local community members into the project’s development.
California Community Power and CADEMO “endeavor to apply for grants, incentives, and other support to minimize the cost of offtake from the CADEMO project while maximizing the value of the project’s power output,” they said.
These efforts comprise a roadmap intended to drive the parties toward the potential for a power purchase agreement between them, with the energy benefits and costs flowing to the participating California Community Power member CCAs.
California Community Power sees floating offshore wind as an important potential resource that it may add to its portfolio to support its CCA members’ clean energy and reliability procurement objectives.
To date, it has entered into two long duration battery energy storage contracts totaling 125 MW /1,000 MWh and two geothermal contracts totaling up to 138 MW to support its members’ long-lead time procurement objectives.
Established in 2021, California Community Power is a Joint Powers Authority comprised of nine CCAs.
The agency allows its member CCAs to combine their buying power to procure new, cost-effective clean energy and reliability resources to continue advancing local and state climate goals.
California Community Power members represent over 3 million customers across more than 145 municipalities and serve a combined annual load of more than 36,000 gigawatt hours, representing about 40% of Pacific Gas & Electric’s annual electric load.
California Community Power members consist of Ava Community Energy, Central Coast Community Energy, CleanPowerSF, Peninsula Clean Energy, Redwood Coast Energy Authority, San José Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy, Sonoma Clean Power, and Valley Clean Energy.
