SunEdison inks deal for 7 power plants in Long Island, N.Y.

SunEdison, Inc. has signed agreements with five municipal entities on Long Island, N.Y., to build seven solar power plants totaling 14 MW DC. The electricity from these power plants will be sold to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), an electricity service provider for 1.1 million customers in Long Island through separate 20-year power purchase agreements.

“LIPA’s Clean Solar Initiative program allows communities to benefit from locally generated solar energy, enabling them to better control energy costs,” said Steve Raeder, managing director of Eastern USA distributed generation for SunEdison. “This program has been extremely successful and we look forward to developing more projects in Long Island.”

The contracts with the Town of Southold, Town of Easthampton, Nassau County, Suffolk County and the Suffolk County Water Authority were awarded as part of the LIPA 100 MW Clean Solar Initiative Feed-in Tariff program.

“And with the new NYSERDA block incentive program and the governor’s Reforming the Energy Vision plan, we can replicate our success in Long Island and bring clean, affordable solar energy to customers across the entire state of New York,” Raeder said.

The solar power plants are expected to produce enough electricity to power more than 1,100 homes, and should eliminate the emission of more than 27 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of taking more than 2,600 cars off the road. As an added benefit, the construction of these solar power plants will create an estimated 100 jobs in the Long Island area.

These solar power plants are on the Call Right Projects List for SunEdison’s Yieldco affiliate, TerraForm Power, Inc., a global owner and operator of clean energy power plants. Accordingly, TerraForm Power expects to purchase these projects upon completion. Operation and maintenance of the solar power plant will be performed by SunEdison Services, which provides global 24/7 asset management, monitoring and reporting services.

— Solar Builder magazine

[source: http://solarbuildermag.com/news/sunedison-new-york-power-plant-deal/]