Top Ten Solar

9. SoCal Edison

California leads the country with aggressive policies to promote renewable energy production and use. And Southern California Edison (SCE) stands out as the most aggressive in buying renewable power and pursuing its own power generation projects in the state, particularly solar.

SCE has added the most renewable power in its offerings, reaching nearly 16 percent by the end of 2007. That means the utility is mostly likely to be the first to meet California’s stringent renewable energy standards, which require power retailers to include 20 percent of their supplies from "new' renewables (i.e., solar, wind, geothermal and small hydro) by 2010. The mandate will then increase to 33 percent by 2020. To reach those goals, the utilities will both build their own solar power plants, buying panels from a variety of vendors, as well as buy power from independent providers.

SCE is doing all three. Notably, it took a plunge and announced plans to become an owner and operator of a 250-megawatt solar power project, which would place solar panels on about 65 million square feet of commercial rooftops. The project set SCE apart from other utilities that only have recently warmed up the idea of owning and operating their own solar power plants.

SCE also has signed a good number of power-purchase agreements from a wide range of solar technology providers. It inked a deal to buy power from 1.3 gigawatts worth of solar-thermal power projects being developed by BrightSource Energy. SCE also signed a power purchase agreement with Stirling Energy Systems, which is developing 500-megawatt to 800-megawatt worth of projects. Last summer, SCE also agreed to buy power from wind developer DCE, an affiliate of Caithness Energy, which is working on wind farms that can produce about 909 megawatts of power.

SCE ranked No. 3 among the country’s investor-owned utilities that are serving up wind power to their customers, according to the American Wind Energy Association’s 2008 annual report.

Now, Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and San Diego Gas and Electric have signed their shares of renewable power purchase agreement with solar and wind project developers. PG&E is ahead of San Diego on selling renewable power, and it recently announced plans to own solar projects. PG&E also is ahead of SCE on smart meters deployment (it claims it leads the pack nationwide).