Edison & First Solar Join Forces

Southern California Edison, a subsidiary of Edison International (EIX - Analyst Report), and First Solar (FSLR - Analyst Report) have joined forces in developing two solar power facilities in Southern California, having a combined generating capacity of 550 megawatts (MW) of clean energy. Requisite approvals are pending at the California Public Utilities Commission.

First Solar will be responsible for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of these two projects – a 250MW Desert Sunlight plant near Desert Center and another 300 MW Stateline plant at San Bernardino. Southern California Edison will be in charge of electricity distribution once the project is over.

Construction work for Desert Sunlight is planned to start in 2012 and for Stateline in 2013. Both the projects are likely to be completed by 2015. First Solar will deploy its advanced thin-film photovoltaic solar modules within the plants.
 
These plants will generate around 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean energy each year, which is sufficient to power nearly 170 thousand houses. Moreover, it will facilitate the state of California to achieve its target of delivering 20% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010, which is likely to be further raised to 33% by 2020.