OG&E and SunPower Announce 10-Megawatt Solar Plant in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK & SAN JOSE, CA --(eSolarEnergyNews)-- OGE Energy and SunPower  today announced the two companies have signed a contract to build a 10-megawatt (AC) solar photovoltaic power plant in Covington, Okla. Construction on the plant is anticipated to commence next month.

"The Covington project is a continuation of our successful pilot initiative, which launched with 2.5-megawatt solar facility in Mustang, Oklahoma, in 2015," said OG&E Chief Operating Officer Keith Mitchell.

EDF Renewable Energy Announces Acquisition of Solar Projects from First Solar

SAN DIEGO, CA--(eSolarEnergyNews)--EDF Renewable Energy today announced the acquisition of the 179 megawatt AC (MWac) Switch Station 1 and Switch Station 2 Solar Projects from First Solar, Inc. (NASDAQ: FSLR) in late June. The projects, currently under construction, will sell their combined output and environmental attributes under three Power Purchase Agreements to subsidiaries of NV Energy, Inc. (Nevada Power Company d/b/a NV Energy and Sierra Pacific Power Company d/b/a NV Energy); Commercial Operation Dates (COD) for the two projects are scheduled for late July 2017 and late September 2017, respectively.

Located in Clark County, Nevada on land managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Dry Lake Solar Energy Zone (SEZ), the projects are comprised of First Solar modules on horizontal single-axis trackers. The expected electricity generated at full capacity is enough to meet the consumption of approximately 46,000 Nevada homes. This is equivalent to avoiding more than 265,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions annually1 which represents the greenhouse gas emissions from 52,000 passenger vehicles driven over the course of one year.

Nevada Governor Signs Revised Solar Bill

RENO, NV--(eSolarEnergyNews)--Sunwork, a leading provider of solar power solutions for agriculture, commercial, industrial (ACI), and residential markets, praised the signing of Nevada Assembly Bill 405 (AB405) by Governor Brian Sandoval.

The new AB405 includes a “Solar Bill of Rights” provision, which reinstates net metering with a new system that uses a tiered approach for calculating the export rate of electricity based on the overall penetration of rooftop solar installations throughout the state. The bill restores net metering rates starting at 95% of the full retail rate for excess electricity produced by consumers.

Altus Power Energizes 10 MW New Jersey Solar Farm

GREENWICH, CT--(eSolarEnergyNews)-- Altus Power is pleased to announce the completion of construction and grid interconnection of a 10 megawatt ground-mounted solar energy system, known as the Spartan solar project, in North Hanover Township, NJ. Commencement of construction occurred in September 2016 and involved hundreds of local jobs.

Comprised of over 30,000 solar panels, Spartan is one of the largest solar systems recently developed in the State of New Jersey. Spartan will generate approximately 13,700 megawatt-hours in its first year of operation, enough electricity to offset the CO2 emissions equivalent from burning over 10 million pounds of coal.

SunPower to Supply Equipment Solutions to Global Solar Power Plant Market

SAN JOSE, CA  --(eSolarEnergyNews)-- SunPower announced today that it now offers the fully-integrated SunPower® Oasis® Power Plant platform directly to solar power plant developers and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) providers through a newly formed SunPower® Solutions business unit. SunPower Solutions enables developers and EPCs to benefit from SunPower's extensive experience over the past decade developing, financing, constructing, operating and maintaining solar power plants.

Green Power EMC and Silicon Ranch Announce Dedication of 52MW Solar Farm

HAZLEHURST,GA--(eSolarEnergyNews) --Green Power EMC, the renewable energy supplier for 38 Georgia Electric Membership Corporations (EMCs), and Silicon Ranch, one of the nation's largest independent solar power producers, today officially dedicated a 52-Megawatt (MWAC) solar energy plant in Jeff Davis County, Georgia. The 480-acre facility features technology that allows more than 630,000 solar panels to track the sun from east to west and will provide enough low-cost, renewable power to help serve more than 8,500 EMC households annually.

Silicon Ranch hired McCarthy Building Companies, one of the largest American-owned construction firms, to construct the facility, which took more than eight months to build and officially reached commercial operation in December 2016. The project's construction supported more than 300 jobs, the vast majority of which were filled by local labor and local subcontractors.

Walmart Launches Project Gigaton to Reduce Emissions in Company’s Supply Chain

BENTONVILLE, AR.--(eSolarEnergyNews)--Today, during Walmart’s annual Milestone Summit, the company launched a sustainability platform inviting suppliers to join Walmart in committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from their operations and supply chains. Dubbed Project Gigaton, this initiative will provide an emissions reduction toolkit to a broad network of suppliers seeking to eliminate one gigaton of emissions, focusing on areas such as manufacturing, materials and use of products by 2030. That’s the equivalent to taking more than 211 million passenger vehicles off of U.S. roads and highways for a year.

Walmart is the first retailer with a verified science-based target emissions-reduction plan. The company aims to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 18 percent by 2025. The retailer will also work to reduce CO2e, or carbon dioxide equivalent, emissions from upstream and downstream Scope 3 sources by one billion tons (a gigaton) between 2015 and 2030.