San Benito County planning commissioners Saturday approved the supplemental environmental review for PV2’s solar project in Panoche Valley.
Commissioners voted 4-0 at the special meeting continued from a recent, regular gathering due to a scheduling conflict.
Opponents spoke at the meeting and contended the supplemental environmental impact review should have gone through the same, stringent steps of a full EIR as done with the original, much larger version of the project. Commissioners disagreed and approved the supplemental document, which could go back to the county board pending any possible appeals.
The California Public Utilities Commission in March approved a power purchase agreement for the 247-megawatt Panoche Valley solar project. Prior to that, PV2 in August reached a 20-year power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison for the 247 megawatts.
The project still must gain approvals on environmental and engineering reviews from state and federal agencies.
The agreement with the Panoche Valley project is over 20 years with an expectation to be online by 2019.
Solargen Energy first proposed the Panoche Valley project in 2009, but when the company ran into financial problems in 2011, PV2 bought the assets for the project.
With the initial proposal, there was talk of building a 1,000-megawatt solar farm on up to 30,000 acres. As recent as late 2013, the project was planned for 339 megawatts.
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