California’s schools, libraries and prisons are going solar in droves to take control of their energy bills – and they’re saving taxpayers billions of dollars in the process.  But the size of solar energy systems that qualify for the bill credit benefits of California’s net metering program is capped at 1 megawatt – that falls well short of the amount of solar power our public facilities could put to good use.  AB 2234 would change that.

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SDG&E has now submitted their advice letter asking approval for their first renewable auction mechanism contracts.  Letter is here (pdf).  Add that to the other utilities’ results, and we’re at 145 MW for the statewide total of the first RAM round.

Some details from SDG&E’s effort:

• 2 projects were selected, totalling 15 MW (SDG&E’s requirement is for 81 MW over the next 2 years)
• Both PV
• Silverado is the developer of both
• 32 bids were submitted, most in the 5-10 MW range
• The weighted average of the highest executed contract price from each of the three utilities for RAM projects is $89.23/MWh (added: price is pre-Time of Delivery adjustments)
  
• Did you read that?  Highest is 8.9 cents per kWh for 20 year contract.  That’s really low.

They’ve got 18 months to come on line.

Onwards.