German renewable energy company BayWa r.e. renewable energy GmbH has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the not-for-profit community choice energy program San Diego Community Power (SDCP).
As per the agreement, SDCP will purchase electricity for 20 years from the Jacumba Valley Ranch (JVR) Energy Park, which is being developed by BayWa r.e. near Jacumba Hot Springs in San Diego County. JVR pairs a 90 MW (AC) solar PV array with a 70 MW/280 MW-hour DC-coupled battery energy storage system.
Construction on the project, which is expected to create approximately 350 construction jobs, will begin in the early part of 2022. It is scheduled to be operational by the first half of 2023. Once completed and interconnected to the San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) transmission grid, the power plant will provide enough electricity to power at least 52,000 SDCP customer households annually. The project will also offset more than 500,000 metric tons of carbon emissions over the life of the project.
Speaking about the PPA, CEO of BayWa r.e. Solar Projects in the US Jam Attari said, "JVR Energy Park will be a major step forward in the deployment of storage-integrated utility-scale solar in California, delivering competitively priced clean power as well as resiliency and reliability to the grid. We're excited to partner with a forward-looking community choice aggregator like San Diego Clean Power on this innovative project."
Echoing similar sentiments, Chair of the SDCP board and Encinitas City Councilmember Joe Mosca said, "The renewable energy produced and stored at the JVR Energy Park will be an important foundational block of SDCP's planned power supply portfolio. Working with an experienced renewables developer such as BayWa r.e. gives us confidence that we will meet our clean energy and climate goals."