Beverly Hills, CA – January 23, 2020 – Frontier Renewables, a global developer of utility scale solar photovoltaic plants, is pleased to announce the achievement of commercial operation of the largest project it has developed to date. The 200 MW Wright Solar Park in Merced County, California was brought online earlier this month and became the largest operational solar facility supplying electricity to a Community Choice Aggregator (“CCA”).
The project, located near Los Banos, was built to provide renewable energy for Peninsula Clean Energy (“PCE”), a CCA serving more than 290,000 customers in San Mateo County. PCE has an exclusive 25-year power purchase agreement (“PPA”) with Wright Solar Park to buy the facility’s electricity, which is enough to power over 100,000 average California households.
“Frontier Renewables is extremely proud that Wright Solar Park has come online and will be a major contributor to the ambitious clean energy goals of PCE and the State of California,” said Balduin Hesse, CEO and President of Frontier Renewables. “The successful collaboration of many stakeholders made this project possible. Reducing emissions and fighting climate change requires large ambitious projects and Wright is a perfect example that this can be done.”
Frontier Renewables began developing the project in 2011 and sold it in September 2017 after securing the land, permits, interconnection agreement with the transmission provider and the PPA. The Wright project is currently owned by Centaurus Renewable Energy and the construction and operations are managed by Clēnera, LLC.
The solar facility was constructed by Swinerton Renewable Energy with roughly 400 union workers from the surrounding areas that were hired as part of a five-union project labor agreement. Laborers, electricians, iron workers, carpenters, operators and engineers – many from the Bakersfield and Fresno areas – joined forces to install roughly 650,000 solar panels and accompanying equipment in only 11 months.
Frontier Renewables, with offices in Europe and the U.S., is a global utility-scale project developer and independent power provider focused on solar photovoltaics. The company has successfully developed over 300 MW AC in California and has several operating plants in Germany. Currently, Frontier’s team is focused on the development of a new utility scale solar pipeline in Spain.
