Solar Siting Survey: SCE Preferred Resources Pilot

The PRP Solar Siting Survey highlights significant levels of local solar energy that may be generated within an area in southern and central Orange County, California. 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, may support local reliability needs.

SCE contracted with the Clean Coalition to develop this survey with the objective of making local solar a viable component of the PRP. 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 specific grid area.

Results

The PRP Solar Siting Survey identified over 160 megawatts (MW) of technical potential for large commercial-scale 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 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.

The Clean Coalition’s PRP Solar Siting Survey includes a comprehensive spreadsheet and a sophisticated mapping tool for supporting solar project developers in identifying specific siting opportunities. This data will be particularly informative for solar project developers as they participate in the ongoing PRP Renewable Distributed Generation RFO.

Survey map

SCE PRP Solar Siting Survey (Google Map)

Downloads

Press release

Clean Coalition identifies existing solar technical potential on large built environments within Orange County (April 17, 2015)