Press release: Clean Coalition identifies existing solar technical potential on large built environments within Orange County - Clean Coalition
Aerial map view showing santa ana, california, overlaid with numerous yellow icons indicating various power output values in kilowatts, ranging from 250kw to 1020kw.

Press release: Clean Coalition identifies existing solar technical potential on large built environments within Orange County

The Clean Coalition has released a Solar Siting Survey that identifies over 160 megawatts of potential solar capacity and provides key tools to assess specific siting opportunities.

Craig Lewis


April 17, 2015

NEWS RELEASE:Clean Coalition identifies existing solar technical potential on large built-environments within Orange County

The Clean Coalition has released a Solar Siting Survey that identifies over 160 megawatts of potential solar capacity and provides key tools to assess specific siting opportunities

Today, the Clean Coalition released a Solar Siting Survey that highlights the significant technical level of local solar photovoltaic (PV) energy that may be generated within an area in southern and central Orange County. The grid area assessed by the survey comprises the Preferred Resources Pilot (PRP), an effort by Southern California Edison (SCE) to study and demonstrate how distributed energy resources, including local solar PV, may support local reliability needs.

The PRP Solar Siting Survey includes a comprehensive spreadsheet and a sophisticated mapping tool for supporting solar project developers in identifying specific siting opportunities. Importantly, this Survey is expected to help inform solar project developers as they participate in the ongoing PRP Renewable Distributed GenerationRFO.

The PRP Solar Siting Survey identified over 160 megawatts (MW) of technical potential for large commercial solar installations within the PRP grid area. These built-environment sites are comprised of very large rooftops, parking lots, and parking structures – most of which are large enough to host at least 500 kilowatts (kW) of solar PV. More specifically, the PRP Solar Siting Survey identified about 90 MW of siting potential on large rooftops, 50 MW over large parking lots, and 23 MW atop multi-story parking structures.

“We believe that a Solar Siting Survey, paired with streamlined procurement and interconnection procedures, will substantially reduce transaction costs associated with solar project development and provide value to any utility wanting to harness cost-effective local solar production,” said Craig Lewis, Executive Director of the Clean Coalition. “It is a pleasure working with SCE on the Preferred Resources Pilot, which is a model for investigating and demonstrating distributed energy resources; and the Clean Coalition looks forward to facilitating similar efforts across the country.”

Although the initial PRP Solar Siting Survey focused on siting opportunities of at least 500 kW, the siting potential for projects between 50 kW and 500 kW is estimated to be two to three times greater.

SCE contracted with the Clean Coalition to develop the Survey with the objective of making local solar a viable component of the Preferred Resources Pilot. The PRP Solar Siting Survey provides the public and the solar development community with information that is designed to facilitate identification and assessment of the largest solar siting opportunities in the project area.

The Clean Coalition’s PRP Solar Siting Survey and associated materials are available on the Clean Coalition website at www.clean-coalition.org/resource/solar-siting-surveys/. On May 13, the Clean Coalition will conduct a webinar about its work siting solar in distribution grids.

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Contact:
John Bernhardt, Outreach & Communications Director
Clean Coalition
john@clean-coalition.org
(703) 963-8750

About the Clean Coalition

The Clean Coalition is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and a modern grid through technical, policy, and project development expertise. For further information on the Clean Coalition, please visit www.clean-coalition.org.

Craig Lewis

Founder and Executive Director

Craig founded the Clean Coalition in 2009 and has over 30 years of experience in policy and technology innovation, including the proliferation of Solar Microgrids and Community Microgrids. Prior to founding the Clean Coalition, Craig held numerous positions in the wireless, semiconductor, banking, and renewable energy industries. Previously VP of Government Relations at GreenVolts, he was the first to successfully navigate a solar project through California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard solicitation process. Craig was energy policy lead on Steve Westly’s 2006 California gubernatorial campaign. His resume includes senior government relations, corporate development, and marketing positions at leading wireless, semiconductor, and banking companies such as Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Barclays Bank. Craig received an MBA and MSEE from the University of Southern California and a BSEE from the University of California, Berkeley.