Californian aggregator signs 15-year PPA with Ormat

26 MW Heber repowered binary geothermal facility, California (source: Ormat)

Ormat Technologies Inc. (NYSE: ORA) has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) effective January 1, 2023 with Peninsula Clean Energy, a Community Choice Aggregator (CCA) that provides more than 3,500 gigawatt-hours of electricity to San Mateo County and the City of Los Banos in California. Under the agreement, the CCA will purchase 26 MW of clean, renewable energy from the Heber 2 geothermal facility located in Imperial Valley, CA.

This PPA marks the successful completion of Ormat’s first ever solicitation for bids, with a request for bids (RFB) on the Heber 2 facility issued in July of 2021, as we reported. The RFB was published immediately after the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued their Mid-Term Reliability (MTR) Decision, requiring the procurement of 1,000 MW of weather invariant, zero-emission, 80% capacity generation by all California load serving entities by 2026. Power from the Heber 2 facility complies with MTR guidelines, making it the first geothermal PPA to meet the new CPUC requirements.

“We at Ormat are very pleased with the success of our bid solicitation and business development efforts, as we increase the utilization of electricity from renewable sources for the region. We’re pleased to establish a relationship with Peninsula Clean Energy and help bring them closer to meeting their goal of delivering 100 percent renewable electricity by 2025,” said Ormat Technologies CEO Doron Blachar.

“The clean and reliable geothermal energy from Heber 2 will play a key role in meeting our sector-leading goal of achieving 24/7 renewable power for our customers by 2025,” said Peninsula Clean Energy CEO Jan Pepper.

“This binary, water-cooled geothermal facility will provide us with baseload emission-free generation all year round, and provides a great complement to our growing solar and wind portfolio.” he added.

Source: Ormat