May 5, 2021 David Wagman

Salt River Project has announced plans to more than double its 2025 utility-scale solar commitment to add 2025 MW of new utility-scale solar power to its power system by the end of its 2025 fiscal year. .

The new target is more than 1,000 MW beyond SRP’s initial 2025 commitment of 1,000 MW, announced in November 2018.

As part of the increase, 450 MW comes from a single commercial customer to meet its renewable energy commitments. All renewable energy purchased is expected to come from solar power developments built in Arizona or the Navajo Nation, and will be used by SRP’s commercial and residential customers.

SRP is a not-for-profit community electric utility and the largest electricity supplier in the greater Phoenix area, serving over one million customers. SRP is also the metropolitan area’s largest water supplier, providing approximately 800,000 acre-feet annually to municipal, urban and agricultural water users.

SRP currently has 648 MW of utility-scale solar power plants online or under contract and under development across Arizona. He said he would add more than 1,375 MW of newly subscribed solar power by 2025.

Solar additions

SRP recently signed a contract for the production of the Sonoran Energy Center, which will be one of the largest solar battery projects in Arizona. The utility has also signed a contract for a large-scale solar and battery storage project at the Pinal Central Solar Power Center, and is bringing a new grid-powered battery storage project online at the power station in Pinal. ‘Agua Fria.

SRP said it was reviewing programs to allocate new solar capacity to various customer groups, including community solar power for residential customers.

SRP’s latest solar developments were commissioned in December 2020 and include the 100 MW East Line Solar and the 100 MW Saint Solar. The two large-scale solar fields serve commercial, municipal and educational customers who participate in SRP’s sustainable energy offering.

East Line Solar was built by developer sPower and only serves Intel Corp. with 100 MW of solar energy. Saint Solar was built by developer NextEra.

Another solar power plant that is part of SRP’s sustainable energy offering is Central Line Solar, a 100 MW solar field to be built by sPower. It will serve 21 SRP customers when it goes live in December.