Southern California Edison (SCE) signed a 20-year contract with DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy, which will provide up to 909 MW of wind power. Developers say that once completed, the Caithness project will be one of the world’s largest fully permitted wind farms.
The project, called Caithness Shepherd’s Flat, involves the installation of 303 wind turbines across 30 square miles in Gilliam and Morrow Counties in North-Central Oregon between 2011 and 2012. Shepherd’s Flat is expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year of renewable energy—more than one-tenth of SCE’s overall renewable portfolio.
This contract is a crown jewel in our renewable energy portfolio. The project is attractive to SCE because of its size, near-term delivery and its competitive price.
—Stuart Hemphill, SCE vice president, Renewable and Alternative Power
The project will require no additional or upgraded transmission lines, which significantly lessens the time it takes for a power plant of this magnitude to come on line.
SCE leads the US in renewable energy delivery, procuring about 12.5 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy in 2007, more than any US utility. In 2007, renewable energy constituted about 16% of SCE’s total energy portfolio. SCE currently has sufficient contracts in place that, when delivering, will meet or exceed 20% or more of its customers’ energy needs with renewable energy.
In 2007, SCE delivered the following renewable energy portfolio to its customers:
An Edison International company, Southern California Edison is the largest electric utility in California, serving a population of more than 13 million via 4.8 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.