Rocky Mountain Power contracts to deliver renewable energy for six large customers
NOVEMBER 24, 2020
SALT LAKE CITY— The Utah Public Service Commission provided final approval of an application by Rocky Mountain Power, on behalf of six large organizations in the state, to purchase electricity and renewable energy attributes from a large new solar project in Tooele County that is owned and being developed by D. E. Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI). The application makes use of the Schedule 34 Renewable Energy Tariff, allowing large customers of Rocky Mountain Power to work through the utility to source renewable energy to meet the organizations’ clean energy goals.
The six customers include three local governments (Salt Lake City, Park City, and Summit County), one higher-education institution (Utah Valley University), and two ski resorts (Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain).
All six organizations worked with Rocky Mountain Power to source a greater share of their internal electricity needs from cost-effective renewable energy. The final Commission order completes a major milestone for the solar project to be online by 2023. Elektron Solar, an 80-megawatt (MWac) solar project to be located in Tooele County, was selected and recently executed contracts for its full 80-MWac capacity.
The Elektron Solar project is owned and will be constructed by DESRI, building on a successful collaboration between DESRI and Enyo Renewable Energy (ERE), a Utah-based renewable energy developer, that is now responsible for more than 275 MWac of new customer-driven solar capacity being constructed in 2021 and 2022 in northern Utah. The project was originally developed and permitted by ERE, a joint venture among affiliates of Enyo, LLC and MAP® Energy, LLC. The Elektron Solar project is anticipated to support approximately 100 construction jobs and will be an ongoing source of revenues to both Tooele County as well as the State of Utah’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which owns the land on which the project is sited.