Utility SCE opens biggest solar rooftop in California

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The biggest single rooftop photovoltaic solar project in California was officially opened on Monday by electric utility Southern California Edison at a warehouse 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

Over the next five years, SCE plans to install 250 megawatts of solar panels atop 2 square miles of commercial roofs in 150 separate projects in its service territory of southern, central and coastal California, as long as state regulators approve passing the $875 million cost on to customers.

The California Public Utilities Commission is expected to make that decision in March 2009. By March, SCE, a unit of Edison International, expects to have three rooftop projects up and running -- the one opened Monday in Fontana, one in Chino, and one at a site to be named soon.

Ted Craver, chairman and CEO of Edison International, officially opened the Fontana project on Monday with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and First Solar vice president for business development John Carrington.

First Solar sold 33,700 thin-film solar panels to SCE, which paid a contractor to install them over 600,000 square feet of rooftop at a ProLogis distribution warehouse in Fontana.

It can generate enough electricity at peak -- 2 megawatts -- to serve 1,300 average homes, SCE said. Its cost was $10 million, which comes in at $4,200 per kilowatt, compared to $7,000 per kilowatt average for photovoltaic solar in California, SCE said.

The utility told the Public Utilities Commission when it presented its five-year plan that it would bring the cost down to half -- $3,500 per kilowatt -- of the state average. Craver said that by the time the first few projects are in place, it could realize that target.

"We believe that one of the benefits of the program is to drive economies of scale, which will benefit our projects and also lower the cost for everyone," said Craver in a telephone interview.

Craver said the rooftop commercial program allows SCE to deliver power directly to local distribution networks in neighborhoods and business districts without having to build transmission lines or buy or lease land, which are necessary for bigger renewable projects in remote areas good for wind or solar power generation.

"We view this as a really important part of the generation mix, primarily because it fills gaps," said Craver.

Those gaps include incremental local power needs until completion of larger renewable projects, which in turn must be paced to the progress of major transmission lines now under construction, like the Tehachapi lines that are to bring wind power to cities of Southern California in about five years.

First Solar, based in Tempe, Arizona, on Monday was also named the supplier of SCE's second major rooftop project, which will cover 458,000 square feet atop an industrial building in Chino.

Leases with building owners for the rooftop panels in the SCE program are expected to be 20 years, as it is in Fontana.

Schwarzenegger said the SCE project "is just one example of how private companies are helping us reduce our emissions and meet our renewable energy goals."

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Editing by Gary Hill)