Last December, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) announced a 25-year power purchasing agreement (PPA) with California-based SolarReserve, through which the utility would buy the power generated by SolarReserve’s Rice Solar Energy Project in Riverside County, California. Yet for nearly a year, construction of the plant has stalled as the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) held off on approving the long-term PPA.

That all changed this week as the CPUC finally approved the PPA, giving the green light for SolarReserve to begin constructing the 150-megawatt (MW) solar thermal plant that is expected to generate 450,000 megawatt-hours (mWh) of solar energy each year. That’s enough to power the equivalent of 68,000 average American homes for a full year.

The plant will be built on private land and feature a storage capacity of up to 10 hours of solar energy. Consequently, the plant will still be able to pump out electricity when cloudy days roll through in the upcoming fall and winter seasons.