In 2002, the California legislature approved Senate Bill 1078, which created the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS), one of the most ambitious of its kind in the country. Later reaffirmed by Senate Bill 107 in 2006, the RPS requires electricity corporations to increase the amount of energy they receive from renewables by 1 percent annually. The goal back then was to reach 20 percent by 2010. By 2020, that figure increases to 33 percent.

A direct result of California’s push toward renewables is CalRENEW-1, the first utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) solar energy project to gain regulatory approval under the state’s RPS program. The big, new California solar installation was inaugurated last week. Located in Mendota, the 5-megwatt (MW) project is comprised of over 50,000 solar panels and covers nearly 50 acres of land in California’s Central Valley. Under a power purchasing agreement (PPA), the emission-free electricity generated by CalRENEW-1 will be purchased by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), a large California utility.

The project marks a number of important milestones. For Cleantech America’s parent company, Meridian Energy Ltd. of New Zealand, CalRENEW-1 marks the completion of its first project in the United States. For PG&E, the project is (according to the press release) the first PPA the utility has completed in order to comply with state renewable energy mandates. And for the state of California, CalRENEW-1 is the first utility-scale solar project to be commissioned under the state’s renewable portfolio standard.

Related reading: