SOLAR TODAY Blog

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric has announced plans for two massive PV arrays, totalling 800 megawatts, in San Luis Obispo County. Under power purchase agreements, OptiSolar will build a 550 MW thin-film array, and SunPower will build a 250 MW silicon system.

Together, the two arrays will produce 12.5 times the power of the largest existing solar plant, the Nevada One concentrating solar thermal facility in the Mojave Desert. PG&E hopes to have the new capacity come o online in stages from 2010 to 2013, some of it in time to help meet a 2010 deadline for 20% renewable power under California’s RPS. The company says it will produce 24% renewables by 2013.

The deal depends on federal and state permitting, construction of new transmission lines, and on renewal of the 30% federal investment tax credit, still stalled in Congress.

For more detail see stories in the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury-News, and New York Times.