Scout Clean Energy and California community choice aggregator (CCA) Peninsula Clean Energy have signed a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that will provide San Mateo County and City of Los Banos customers with 76.35 megawatts (MW) from the repowering of the Pacheco Pass Wind Farm in Merced County, Calif.
Construction will begin in late 2023 and the project will replace the existing 162-turbine wind farm in Pacheco State Park, originally built nearly four decades ago, with a much-smaller fleet of far more powerful state-of-the-art turbines that are expected to be operational by around the end of October 2024.
While the existing 162 turbines produce 16.5 MW, Scout is planning a total capacity of 147.5 MW of wind energy and a 50-MW four-hour Battery Energy Storage System. The completed project upgrades would be one of the first repower projects on state land in California.
GRWF will be located about 10 miles from the groundbreaking 200-MW Wright Solar Project, which in January 2020 became the largest renewable energy installation at the time ever built for a CCA to officially go online.
Wright Solar was Peninsula Clean Energy’s first project located in Merced County and California’s Central Valley.
Peninsula Clean Energy is the official electricity provider for San Mateo County and, beginning in 2022, for the City of Los Banos.
Founded in 2016, the agency serves 295,000 customers by providing more than 3,500 gigawatt hours annually of electricity.
The American Public Power Association has initiated a new category of membership for community choice aggregation programs.