The recent joint venture agreement bringing the nation’s largest public utility into the mix on the Panoche Valley solar project is a welcome sign and should answer any concerns about the plan’s financial validity.
Duke Energy Generation Systems, a subsidiary of North Carolina-based Duke Energy, bought into the partnership about two months ago. Representatives from the Fortune 250 company and officials with partner PV2 Energy will host an informational breakfast meeting Wednesday morning to provide details on the merger and other general information looking ahead, such as timeline for the project.
Duke Energy brings serious clout, experience and a proven track record to the $1.2 billion, 399-megawatt project, as pointed out in a Free Lance interview by Eric Cherniss, a project development official who has remained with the company since its origins as Solargen Energy.
One of the primary concerns from the outset of the project was its validity – namely, its principles’ lacking experience in such endeavors and, most important, lacking financial capital to actually get a major solar farm off the ground.
While environmentalist and some property owners remain skeptical about environmental impacts – which the company, now called Panoche Valley Solar LLC, is doing its best to resolve – there is no longer a question over the venture’s capability to finance the project. Duke Energy, a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, maintains assets exceeding $100 billion. Â
Rest assured: This is no fly-by-night operation. Its involvement signals optimism that the company can, and should, meet its current timeline of breaking ground in 2014.
It is also a welcome sign that the joint venture and Duke Energy officials appear willing to remain transparent, with the planned breakfast meeting Wednesday at San Juan Oaks and expectations to increase public relations efforts in the months to come.
As Panoche Valley Solar holds up its end of the deal, we encourage county supervisors and other officials, particularly in the planning department and county counsel’s office, to do everything in their power to ensure this opportunity moves forward and construction gets started by early 2014.
