ROSEMEAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Southern California Edison (SCE) announced that it has signed contracts for 2,221 megawatts of power from diverse new resources to meet its customers’ long-term electricity needs. The 2,221 megawatts will represent roughly 10 percent of SCE’s current total customer peak usage and is enough to power about 950,000 average homes.
The new contracts result from a plan recommended by SCE in response to state forecasts of local reliability needs due to the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and anticipated retirement of older, natural gas generation plants along the Southern California coastline that rely on ocean water for their cooling needs.
In this solicitation, SCE received more than 1,800 final offers and, for the first time, a wide range of resource types were evaluated in a head-to-head competition to meet a specific reliability objective. In addition to five offers with new natural gas generation plants, SCE selected 69 offers from preferred resources and energy storage facilities. Preferred resources are methods of delivering electricity that are cleaner, or more environmentally sustainable, than traditional resources.
“This solicitation is the first time that such a wide range of new diverse resources were directly competing in the purchasing process,” said Colin Cushnie, SCE vice president, Energy Procurement & Management. “No single energy source can give us everything we need all of the time, particularly with our emphasis to use environmentally clean resources. To provide for flexibility, we need to accommodate a mix of energy resources.”
The preferred resources offers selected in this solicitation include energy efficiency, demand response (measures in which customers shift their electricity usage during peak periods) and electricity generated by solar photovoltaic facilities. This procurement effort also marks the first time SCE has contracted with energy storage projects through a competitive solicitation.
The contracts require California Public Utilities Commission approval. The competitive solicitation sought not only resources to help enhance the reliability of the power network in specific geographic locations (Los Angeles Basin and Ventura/Santa Barbara), but also to encourage conservation and develop new technologies and innovative solutions to meet identified local electric reliability needs in Southern California.
“Using energy more wisely, improving energy diversity and increasing flexibility are the keys to maintaining and improving the reliability of Southern California’s grid while incorporating renewables and new technologies,” said Cushnie. “These projects will provide energy solutions to meet the reliability and affordability needs of electricity customers.”
These agreements further California’s clean-energy goals and are one component of increasing the use of preferred resources and meeting future reliability needs. SCE has progressive goals for procuring new preferred resources and intends to continue to target such resources to meet its local reliability needs in the West Los Angeles basin and Ventura/Santa Barbara areas.
For more information on the resources and contracts, go to: sce.com/wps/portal/home/procurement/solicitation/lcr/.
About Southern California Edison
An Edison International (NYSE:EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of the nation’s largest electric utilities, serving a population of nearly 14 million via 4.9 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California.
