23 Jan Austin Energy blankets solar panels across site formerly slated for a new coal-fired power plant

If you were charged with delivering a climate protection plan that reduced greenhouse gasses to 20% below 2005 levels, what would you do? How about sign a contract for the largest solar power array ever seen in this country? That's exactly what Pat Sweeney and the rest of the Austin Energy decision makers did in 2009.

Mr. Sweeney, now Director of Energy & Market Operations at Austin Energy, shared the utility's experience with solar power at Solar Austin's Happy Hour last night at the oldest business in Texas: Sholz's Bier Garten downtown next to the capital. He explained that Austin Energy was motivated by climate goals but also by the directive given by their Board (in Austin Energy's case, the City Council Members) to install 200MW of solar power by 2020 where 100MW of that should be local and 50MW of it on customer-owned rooftops. So with the stroke of a pen, they purchased 30% of their utility-scale solar goal.

The Webberville Solar PV Facility took 9 months to construct and entered service in December of 2011 — so it's been cranking out energy for just over two full years. 280 acres of the site is packed with 127,000 solar panels and is part of a 2,700 acre parcel purchased in 1984 by Austin Energy as a land asset into which the utility could grow. Back in the day a large coal plant was envisioned there as a future possibility. Talk about lemonade out of lemons! And there is plenty of room to expand this solar facility in the future.

Austin Energy took the safe route in procuring this generating capacity, paying no money up front to build it and locking in a fixed rate for whatever electricity it produces for a 25 year period. No electrons, no dollars paid. A consortium of partners were involved in the project, but most of the money flows to RES Americas for construction and the initial 5 years, then it's a insurance company who is funding the deal long term, a company with whom some readers may already do business: Metlife. Securing reliable 25-year cashflows is a valuable commodity to a company who underwrites 10, 20 and 30-year life insurance policies.

On an output basis, the power plant has performed as designed and the experience had led Austin Energy to issue a new 50MW solar Request For Proposals which were due in December. Details of those new clean power proposals won't be public for a while, but Mr. Sweeney was happy to share that the leadership and lessons of Webberville is paying dividends and the citizens of Austin will be pleased by what is coming down the pike in cost effective solar.