San Benito County supervisors Tuesday once again approved of the 247-megawatt Panoche solar project, and it may have been the final local consideration on the highly debated endeavor.
County supervisors unanimously rejected an appeal from opponents of the planning commission’s approval of the Panoche Valley Solar Project. It means the company behind the project, PV2, has one more major hurdle out of the way and is continuing to await decisions on environmental reviews from state and federal agencies.
An executive with PV2 at Tuesday’s county board meeting said he hopes to have construction start late this summer.
San Benito County planning commissioners in late April voted 4-0 in support of the supplemental environmental review for PV2’s solar project in Panoche Valley. 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 is now going back to the board for a final appeal.
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 agreement with the Panoche Valley project is over 20 years with an expectation to be online by 2019.
The project still must gain approvals on environmental and engineering reviews from state and federal agencies.
Solargen Energy first proposed the Panoche Valley project in 2009, but when the company encountered financial problems in 2011, PV2 bought the assets for the project. Supervisors first approved of the solar project in 2010 when its scope was much larger.
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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