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SunPower Corp. is planning to build a 17-megawatt solar photovoltaic array in southern Colorado -- one of the largest such projects in North America.
San Jose, Calif.-based SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWRA) plans to complete the Alamosa County solar array by the end of 2010, pending project financing and regulatory approval. The project -- which would consist of PV panels that track the sun's daily trek across the sky -- would be second-largest of its kind in North America.
SunPower would own and operate the system. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. (NYSE: XEL) would buy all of its output over 10 years, per a power-purchase agreement.
Company officials declined to disclose financial terms of the deal.
Xcel, which ranks as the nation's fifth-largest utility provider of solar power, serves about 70 percent of the Colorado market. The state's newly augmented power portfolio standard requires Xcel and other large utilities to derive 20 percent of their sales from renewable resources by 2020; 4 percent of the electricity sold must come from solar PV or concentrated solar power projects.
Xcel's current solar portfolio consists of about 32 megawatts from homes, offices and an existing Alamosa County solar farm, noted Mark Stutz, a company spokesman in Denver. Xcel has bids out for at about 200 megawatts of concentrated solar power generation, in an effort to comply with the Colorado law, he said.
Nellis Air Force Base in southern Nevada is home to the nation's largest operational PV array, with 14 megawatts of capacity. SunPower aims to complete construction of a 25-megawatt PV array in DeSoto County, Fla., by the end of the year.
Florida Power & Light, a subsidiary of FPL Group (NYSE:FPL), would own the Sunshine State project.
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