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Construction underway in Pinal County on 100-megawatt East Line Solar Plant

SRP, sPower project to bring $10M in tax revenue, 350 construction jobs

Posted 9/24/20

Salt River Project and sPower, a renewable energy independent power producer, today announced construction is underway on East Line Solar, a new solar plant that will bring $10 million in 25 years of …

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utilities

Construction underway in Pinal County on 100-megawatt East Line Solar Plant

SRP, sPower project to bring $10M in tax revenue, 350 construction jobs

Posted

Salt River Project and sPower, a renewable energy independent power producer, today announced construction is underway on East Line Solar, a new solar power plant that will bring $10 million in 25 years of tax revenue and up to 350 construction jobs to Pinal County.

It also will deliver 100 megawatts of solar generation to the Intel Corp.’s Chandler facility, according to a release.

“Intel is proud to support new, renewable energy built in Arizona, and we are looking forward to East Line Solar supplying our growing Arizona manufacturing operations,” Marty Sedler, Intel’s director of Global Utilities and Infrastructure, said in the release.

Intel has been a green-power buyer for more than a decade, and it's corporate goal is to power its facilities with 100% green power and 100% renewable energy by 2030, Mr. Sedler said in the release.

East Line Solar received its conditional use permits in the city of Coolidge in 2019 and is expected to begin operations in December 2020. The project will provide sustained tax revenue to the local community as well as sustainable energy at a fixed price for the 25-year contracted life of the project.

Estimated tax benefits total $10 million, with the highest payments at the onset of project operations. Additionally, up to 350 construction workers are employed for six to seven months and approximately three full-time equivalent workers will be employed long term, with a focus on hiring locally.

“SPower has proven its commitment to renewable energy for a sustainable future, and the city is fortunate to partner with the sPower team to expand in one of the regions fastest growing industrial and technology corridors,” Rick Miller, Coolidge city manager, said in the release. 

This development is part of SRP’s Sustainable Energy Offering, a program that gives the utility's commercial customers the option to power a portion of their operations with clean energy at an affordable price. There are now a total of 33 companies, including 21 organizations recently announced, that signed up to receive 300 MW of solar energy provided from Arizona-based solar plants, including the sPower East Line Solar facility.

The East Line Solar facility from Salt Lake City-based sPower will support Intel’s Chandler Ocotillo Campus, one of the corporation’s largest global, semiconductor manufacturing sites. The solar plant is part of SRP’s growing portfolio of clean energy resources contributing to the utility’s 2035 Sustainability Goals to reduce carbon intensity by more than 60% in 2035 and by 90% in 2050 from 2005 levels.

“This is a scenario that works well for all involved,” said Jim Pratt, SRP associate general manager and chief customer executive. “With the East Line Solar project, we are supporting a great, locally based partner, Intel, meet its sustainability goals. We also experience many other benefits associated with utility-scale solar investment, like job creation and expansion in an environmentally sensible, growing industry.”

“We are committed to Pinal County for the long term with this low-cost, highly economically impactful project. We also seek to be a good neighbor as we develop, construct and operate projects, and it’s important for us to integrate ourselves from the start,” Ryan Creamer, sPower CEO, said in the releae.

An independent power producer, sPower owns and operates more than 150 renewable generation systems across the U.S. It operates a wind, solar and storage portfolio of nearly 2.0 gigawatts, with 15 gigawats of projects under development. sPower is owned by a joint venture partnership between The AES Corp. and the Alberta Investment Management Corp.