Pacific Gas and Electric signs another renewable power contract

From the San Francisco Business Journal

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is charging ahead, at least on paper, in its effort to meet state renewable energy mandates.

The Northern California investor-owned utility has signed another contract to buy power from a 92 megawatt solar-thermal power project. NRG Energy Inc. will develop the Alpine SunTower that will use ESolar’s solar thermal technology. ESolar and NRG are partnering to build 500 megawatts of solar thermal power across the southwestern United States.

“ESolar’s power towers can be designed in variable configurations and are easily scalable to meet the growing and evolving needs of forward-looking power providers like PG&E,” said Bill Gross, CEO of ESolar.

Investor-owned utilities in California must source 20 percent of their electricity sales from renewable sources by 2010 to comply with state law. PG&E has contracts to source more than 20 percent of its power from renewable sources but only gets about 12 percent today because of the lengthy time it takes to get many of the renewable technologies to market.

PG&E also has contracts to buy the power produced from 1,300 megawatts of solar thermal power plants from Oakland-based BrightSource.

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