Recurrent Energy in California is making big strides in introducing solar. Its most recent project, under contract to the City of San Francisco, will see construction of a 5-megawatt solar farm at the Sunset Reservoir and the Pier 96/Norcal Recycling Center, from which the city will buy $2-million worth of renewable energy per year to power city-owned facilities.

It is one of the largest solar plants in California, and its approval by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on May 4 opens the way to creating even more jobs in the heartland of America’s eco-consciousness, according to San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The electricity from the solar farm will operate streetlights, and help power San Francisco General Hospital, city schools and the Muni light rail, all under a power purchase agreement with Recurrent Energy which provides electricity at a fixed rate for 25 years.

Formerly, the city installed solar arrays at San Francisco International Airport, the Moscone Convention Center, and the Southeast Wastewater Treatment Plant under its own auspices – building, operating and owning the solar farms – but this sort of arrangement can prove costly in terms of financing and providing manpower to oversee the solar installations. A power purchase agreement provides the same incentives (renewable generation, federal tax credits and carbon offsets) to the city’s Public Utilities Commission with none of the construction and maintenance costs, and also delivers a fixed rate; i.e., one guaranteed for the life of the contract that is also cheaper per kilowatt hour than the local utility charges for the same kind of renewable generation.

Recurrent Energy, a privately-owned company, is active elsewhere in California, most notably at the Post Ranch Inn, where owners recently switched on a 990-panel solar installation whose individually-rated 210-watt panels will reduce carbon emissions by 611,000 pounds annually. The array is large enough to provide electricity to almost 39 households, and will enable the Inn, located in Big Sur, to go green from this day forward.

Recurrent Energy, a distributed power company vested in solar energy, will build and operate the 990-panel array, and sell the power back to Post Ranch Inn through a power purchase agreement. More important, though, the agreement protects Post Ranch Inn from utility increases for the next 15 years, at which time the Inn has the option of buying the array at a nominal cost and generating its own electricity.

For now, on those rare occasions when the Inn doesn’t generate enough from its solar project, a grid tie to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) takes up the slack, though usually the meter is running backward and earning the Inn a credit.

Earlier this year, Recurrent Energy purchased a solar project pipeline of up to 350 megawatts from UPC Solar, a Chicago-based renewable energy firm. This option gives Recurrent Energy direct access to renewable power project opportunities across the U.S. and Canada.

Unlike utility companies, which own power plants in a specific area and deliver electricity and/or gas to residents in that area, distributed power companies can own power-producing assets in many areas and deliver electricity over the established power grid through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) open access policy (Orders No. 888 through 890), the final portion of which was handed down in early 2007.