Sun Chemical has entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Onyx Renewables that Schneider Electric, which structured and brokered the deal, says will save the company about $400,000.
Schneider Electric’s press release says that Onyx Renewables will design, install, own and operate rooftop and carport-top photovoltaic arrays that will produce more than 30 percent of the energy needed to run Sun Chemical’s Carlstadt, N.J. production facility.
This is not the only recent news in the PPA sector. Last week, 8minutenergy Renewables, an independent solar power developer, said it had been approved for a PPA to develop 115 MW at the Springbok 3 Solar Far in Kern County, CA. It is 8minutenergy’s third installation at Springbok 3. The first was for 137 MW and the second for 191 MW. The third installation will provide power to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power via its agreement with the Southern California Public Power Authority.
Late last month, Apple entered into an agreement to buy power from NV Energy, which is headquartered in Las Vegas and owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy. NV Energy plans to seek approval for the PPA from the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada. The project is being built by Techren Solar LLC, the story says.
There is corporate support for a bill before the Missouri General Assembly that would allow the same sort of PPAs in the state, according to Bloomberg.
There have been bills during the past two sessions, but they didn’t proceed far, according to the story. The story says that P.J. Wilson, the Director of Renew Missouri, thinks could make a difference:
The current bill differs in a couple of significant respects from last year’s bill, differences that Wilson believes will bring more legislators on board. Most importantly, it calls for a pause when the total rated generating capacity of renewable-energy contracts reaches 3 percent of the utility’s single-hour peak load.
The list of corporations that have signaled support suggests that it won’t be dismissed out of hand. Seven of those are Procter & Gamble; Wal-Mart; Unilever; General Mills; Target; General Motors and Nestle.
The story describes in detail the steps taken to make the bill more palatable to legislators than previous attempts and says that the Missouri Energy Development Association is “approaching the bill with caution.”
