As part of New York State Initiative, SunEdison has signed agreements with five municipal entities to build 14MW, totaling seven solar power plants on Long Island. The electricity generated from these power plants will be sold to the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) through a 20-year PPA.
"LIPA's Clean Solar Initiative program allows communities to benefit from locally generated solar energy, enabling them to better control energy costs," said Steve Raeder, managing director of Eastern USA distributed generation for SunEdison. "We look forward to developing more projects in Long Island."
Raeder went on to say: "And with the new NYSERDA block incentive program and the governor's Reforming the Energy Vision plan, we can replicate our success in Long Island and bring clean, affordable solar energy to customers across the entire state of New York."
The contracts with the Town of Southold, Town of Easthampton, Nassau County, Suffolk County and the Suffolk County Water Authority were awarded as part of the LIPA 100 MW Clean Solar Initiative Feed-in Tariff program.
Aside from producing enough electricity to power more than 1,100 homes, the solar power plant will create an estimated 100 jobs in the Long Island area when under construction. These solar power plants are on the Call Right Projects List for SunEdison's Yieldco affiliate, TerraForm Power. Accordingly, TerraForm Power expects to purchase these projects upon completion.
Operation and maintenance of the solar power plant will be performed by SunEdison Services, which provides global 24/7 asset management, monitoring and reporting services.