Clean Power Alliance (CPA) signed a power purchase agreement for a new utility-scale wind turbine project. The project was approved by CPA’s Board of Directors at their Oct. 3 board meeting.

The project contracts 300 MW from the White Hills Wind project in Arizona, with an expected output of 830,000 MWh/year. It is located near Hoover Dam and will be owned and operated by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources. The project, which comes online in December 2020 with a 20-year term contract, will count as a PCC-1 renewable resource.

The project will enable CPA to lower costs, including reducing the premium between its 100% Green and 50% Clean and 36% Lean Power rates to incentivize more customers to increase their renewable energy rate tiers. It will also allow CPA to comply with state renewable energy mandates in a cost effective and expeditious manner given its 2020 online date.

Building the project will require approximately 300 construction workers, delivering on CPA’s mission to invest in a green energy workforce. The developer has also committed to contributing $1 million toward local workforce development initiatives in Clean Power Alliance’s service territory over four years. The project has completed the NEPA permitting process and construction is anticipated to begin in early 2020.

The White Hills Wind project complements CPA’s several other recently signed long-term contracts for solar, wind, and hydroelectric projects. CPA will also be launching its 2019 Clean Energy RFO in Fall, which will have tracks for utility-scale projects as well as smaller distributed energy projects, the latter of which would be located exclusively in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

“Our purchase of power from the White Hills Wind project allows us to be nimble in meeting SB 100 goals quickly. It will provide competitively priced power at night and continue to diversify our portfolio,” said Natasha Keefer, Director of Power Planning and Procurement, Clean Power Alliance. “As importantly, it lowers the overall costs of renewable energy for our customers.”

CPA’s newly signed contracts follow a trend of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) programs across the state exercising their buying power and driving new renewable energy development. Collectively to date, California’s CCAs have signed long-term renewable energy contracts for nearly 3 GW.

“We commend CPA for its forward-looking, customer focused approach to procuring renewable energy,” said Matt Handel, Vice President of Development for NextEra Energy Resources. “As the world’s largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and the sun, NextEra Energy Resources is very pleased to continue our work with CPA and provide its customers with access to some of the nation’s most affordable, clean energy.”

News item from CPA