First Solar Sells New Mexico’s Largest Solar Install to Southern Power, Turner Renewable Energy

First Solar Inc. announced today it has sold the 50-MWac Macho Springs Solar Power Plant to Southern Company subsidiary Southern Power and Turner Renewable Energy. El Paso Electric has a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for all energy generated by the power plant. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The power plant, located on approximately 600 acres of State Trust land near Deming, N.M., is the state’s largest solar power plant and will generate enough clean energy to power approximately 18,000 homes in El Paso Electric’s service territory. First Solar developed and constructed the project, working closely with the New Mexico State Land Office and El Paso Electric. The plant will operate on a commercial lease from the State Land Office.

“We are proud of our successful ongoing relationship with Southern Power and Turner Renewable Energy,” said Tim Rebhorn, Senior Vice President of Business Development for First Solar. “We are pleased to provide another best-in-class PV power plant to the partnership’s growing renewable energy portfolio.”

Macho Springs is the third project Southern Power and Turner Renewable Energy have acquired from First Solar. In April 2013, the partnership purchased the 139-MWac Campo Verde Solar Facility in Imperial County, Calif., and in 2010 the group bought the 30-MWac Cimarron Solar Project adjacent to Ted Turner’s Vermejo Park Ranch in northern New Mexico.

This project will displace more than 40,000 metric tons of CO2, the equivalent of taking 7,500 cars off the road, and will displace more than 340,000 metric tons of water consumption annually in southern New Mexico and west Texas.

— Solar Builder magazine

[source: http://solarbuildermag.com/news/first-solar-sells-new-mexicos-largest-solar-install-southern-power-turner-renewable-energy/]