Scout Clean Energy and Peninsula Clean Energy have signed a 15-year PPA that will provide San Mateo County and Los Banos with 76.35 MW by repowering the Pacheco Pass Wind Farm in Merced County.
Purchased from International Turbine Research in 2018, Scout returned the wind farm in Pacheco State Park to operation and will rename the project the Gonzaga Ridge Wind Farm.
“We are excited to expand our partnership with Peninsula Clean Energy and the opportunity to continue to supply clean, renewable power to the customers of San Mateo County and Los Banos in Merced County while we complete our upgrade plans to the Gonzaga Ridge Wind facility,” said Michael Rucker, CEO, and founder of Scout Clean Energy. “In addition, we will continue to generate royalty revenues for the California Department of Parks and Recreation to help fund the operations of the park.”
The project will replace the existing 162-turbine wind farm in Pacheco State Park, originally built nearly four decades ago, with a much-smaller fleet of far more powerful state-of-the-art turbines that are expected to be operational by around the end of October 2024.
While the existing 162 turbines produce 16.5 MW, Scout is planning a total Gonzaga Ridge capacity of 147.5 MW of wind energy and a 50-MW, four-hour battery energy storage system. The completed project upgrades would be one of the first repower projects on state land in California.
Construction, which will begin in late 2023, has a labor agreement between contractors and national unions.
“The Gonzaga Ridge project is an important tool in Peninsula Clean Energy’s efforts to provide 24/7 renewable power, with the added bonus of being located near our new Los Banos service territory,” said Jan Pepper, Peninsula Clean Energy’s CEO . “It is also a great example of how state-of-the-art wind farms have become far more efficient and powerful in providing clean and affordable energy across our territories during both peak and non-peak hours.”
Gonzaga Ridge will be located about 10 miles from the 200-MW Wright Solar Project, which in January 2020 became the largest renewable energy installation at the time ever built for a Community Choice Aggregation agency. Wright Solar was Peninsula Clean Energy’s first project located in Merced County and California’s Central Valley.
“Not only is this the second big renewable development right in our backyard, but it also smartly taps into the tremendous wind power available at Pacheco Park particularly at night and in spring,” said Los Banos Mayor Tom Faria. “This helps further diversify the natural, clean and affordable power that Merced County can increasingly produce directly for our residents.”
News item from Peninsula Clean Energy
Filed Under: News, Projects, Repowering
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