The State of California has given the green light to Southern California Edison to move forward with power purchase agreements for a total of five projects – three solar power ones and two geothermal ones – offered by startup Fervo Energy.
The Southern California Edison has received approval from the State of California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for five power purchase agreements related to clean energy projects. Out of these projects, three are solar power plants that can generate 525 MWac in total, while the other two projects are geothermal. As per Fervo Energy, these two geothermal projects are the largest power purchase agreements for geothermal energy in the world.
The Form EIA-860M by the U.S. Energy Information Administration confirms that energy storage will be integrated with one of the Atlas facilities.
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As per the filing with the CPUC, the three solar power projects are anticipated to achieve a slightly higher AC capacity factor of around 36%. In contrast, the geothermal facilities by Fervo Energy provide an impressive capacity factor of over 82%.
The CPUC has included the geothermal and solar-plus-storage projects in their filing, as both have been found to meet the state’s “mid-term reliability” capacity requirements of 3.8 GW by 2036.
By 2035, California’s objective is to reduce emissions to 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMT CO2e). The state has outlined its plans to achieve this target, with projections of attaining 800 MW of geothermal capacity by 2026, 1.1 GW in 2027, and 2 GW by 2033.
174 Power Global LLC, a subsidiary of the South Korean company Hanwha, owns the Atlas Solar V, VI, and X power plants. Hanwha is also the owner of Qcells, which is the largest silicon solar module manufacturer in the United States.
The solar facilities situated in Salome, Arizona will utilize the Atlas Solar Tie Line Project, a 500kV transmission line, to transmit their generated electricity. This transmission line will interconnect the proposed Atlas facilities with the Ten West Link 500 kV transmission line. As a result, Blythe, California, can use the electricity that the solar facilities produce.
The facilities are located in the active solar development region that the Arizona State Land Department and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management manage.
Located in the southwest region of Utah, there are two geothermal facilities situated at the same site. The initial phase of 70 MW is anticipated to be operational by the year 2026, while the second phase is scheduled to commence in 2028.
According to documents made public by Western Electric Utilities, Fervo’s power purchase agreements could fall within the range of $0.08 to $0.10 per kWh. Fervo also reported a significant improvement in drilling times, with February 2022 seeing a 70% increase in speed and a 50% decrease in cost.
