California community choice aggregator (CCA) Sonoma Clean Power has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with financing company Luminia for a co-located project with 32MWh of energy storage.

Sonoma Clean Power (SCP) has signed the deal with Luminia for the development of the 75-acre project which pairs 11.6MW solar PV farm and 8MW/32MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Sonoma, northern California. Construction is expected to start in the second half of 2023, for which the late stage development is being managed by Luminia and Kenwood Investments.

CCAs are a type of utility founded to allow electricity consumers to select which generation sources their power comes from while still using the transmission and distribution (T&D) networks of California’s main investor-owned utilities. Many have clean power mandates and PPAs signed by such groups have been a part of the growth story of renewable and storage resources in the state in recent years. Read more about them here.

Upon completion, SCP will dispatch the energy from the co-located site to its EverGreen premium service customers in Sonoma and adjoining Mendocino counties. EverGreen is SCP’s renewables-only electricity service, the only truly 24/7 renewable generation service in the US, it claims. It uses solar and geothermal resources from the two counties and the service requires a $0.025/kWh premium which works out to $13 extra a month on average.

Deb Emerson, managing director of procurement for SCP said: “With this solar and storage project we can provide renewable energy on-demand, regardless of the time of day, and promote 100 percent carbon-free energy generated right here in Sonoma County.”

The PPA followed a request for proposals (RFP) in June 2021 by SCP, followed by an exclusivity agreement for the project with Luminia four months later. The finished project will tie into a nearby electrical substation.