Valley Clean Energy purchases Southern California energy output
The project should increase available renewable energy in Yolo County
Valley Clean Energy has purchased the output from a San Bernardino County solar project, which will increase renewable energy in Yolo County.
Valley Clean Energy is the local electric generation provider for Davis, Woodland, Winters and unincorporated Yolo County.
The Valley Clean Energy Board of Directors approved a 20-year agreement to purchase the output from the Resurgence Solar I project that is under development in San Bernardino County by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, LLC. The total capacity of the project is 90 megawatts of power and 75 of battery energy storage. According to a statement from Rebecca Boyles, the director of customer care and marketing for Valley Clean Energy, this project will supply enough energy to power two-thirds of the households served by the company. and the storage will deliver power to the electricity grid in the early evening.
“We are very pleased to work with Valley Clean Energy to help meet their renewable energy goals and bring clean, affordable, home-grown solar energy to their customers,” stated Matt Handel, senior vice president of development for NextEra Energy Resources.
“This agreement, along with a series of other recent actions taken by VCE, is a turning point in our efforts
to deliver cost-effective, renewable power to our customers,” stated Dan Carson, the chairman of the Valley Clean Energy board and a Davis City Council member. “Once the solar power and battery storage from the Resurgence Solar project come online, we project that more than 60% of VCE’s power will come from renewable energy.”
Carson explained that this one agreement alone will power the equivalent of 40,000 homes annually in the service area. He stated that these types of initiatives are possible, “when your power provider is a locally controlled and responsive agency with a board that understands local needs.”
The contract also includes a $200,000 contribution to a workforce development fund and a $100,000 donation to a local sustainability
fund paid for by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources, and distributed over a 10-year period.
“The board will be looking for partnerships with local nonprofits, educational agencies and others to help solve energy-related issues here in Yolo County, or to help to train the diverse clean power workforce of tomorrow that VCE needs to serve our customers,” stated Jesse Loren, vice chair of Valley Clean Energy’s board and a Winters City Council member. “VCE has overlapping social equity and clean energy goals for our member communities that can be well-served by these funds. These monies demonstrate how communitybased power programs like VCE can capture funds that otherwise flow out of Yolo County, putting them to work right here at home.”
NextEra Energy Resources has been generating clean energy for more than 35 years. It is the world’s largest producer of renewable energy from both wind and sun.
In California, NextEra Energy Resources owns and operates wind, solar and battery energy storage facilities and transmission assets in 20 counties. The company has long-term agreements for solar, storage and wind with a halfdozen community choice aggregators: Central Coast Community Energy, CleanPowerSF, Clean Power Alliance of Southern California, Marin Clean Energy, Silicon Valley Clean Energy and Sonoma Clean Power Authority, according to Boyles.
The Resurgence Solar I project is to be constructed on the existing site of the project at Kramer Junction in San Bernardino County, which was purchased by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources in 2005, operated from 1986 until it was decommissioned in 2019.
Carson stated that this site will use new technology to provide clean solar energy for years to come.
The project will require a conditional use permit from San Bernardino County and an approved decommissioning plan from the California Energy Commission, said Gordon Samuel, Valley Clean Energy’s assistant general manager and director of power resources.