The City of Santa Clara’smunicipal electric utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP), more than doubled its solar installations in 2010 to be ranked the top utility in the U.S. by the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) for new installations based on the average number of solar watts per customer installed.SVP customers installed over 1.8 megawatts (MW) of solar last year for an average of 39.9 watts per customer, according to a SEPA report issued today.
Key points:
- SVP more than doubled its solar installations from 2009, when it was ranked fourth with 1.2 MW installed and an average of 22.3 watts per customer.
- SVP finished ahead of utilities in New Jersey, Hawaii, and Colorado as well as PG&E of California.
- SVP had a total of 3.8 MW of solar installed in Santa Clara at the end of 2010.
- 230 utilities were included in the nationwide survey.
“This is an extraordinary honor for SVP and our customers who have embraced solar energy as a way to reduce dependence on non-renewable power sources as well as cut costs,” said Larry Owens, SVP Manager of Customer Services. “The City of Santa Clara has once again shown that our community is a recognized national leader in the battle against climate change.”
“We congratulate Silicon Valley Power for proving itself one of the solar power leaders in the electric utility industry,” said Julia Hamm, President and CEO of SEPA. “SVP has developed creative business models and approaches that are appropriate for its environment and that bring the benefits of solar power to its operations, SVP customers and our society.”
The SEPA Top 10 Utility Solar Rankings measure a utility’s newly installed solar power connected between January 1 and December 31, 2010. There are two rankings categories: Solar Megawatts, which measure a utility’s total solar capacity added that year, and Solar Watts-per-Customer, which is a measure of the utility’s new solar installed divided by its number of customers. PG&E led utilities in total installations with 157 MW installed last year.
The SEPA report contains additional details about the total solar capacity of U.S. utilities, rankings by regions, geographical diversity and other utility solar trends. The full report can be found at www.sepatop10.org.
About Silicon Valley Power
Silicon Valley Power is the trademark adopted for use by the not-for-profit municipal electric utility of the City of Santa Clara, CA serving residents and businesses for over 100 years. SVP provides power to more than 50,000 customers, including Applied Materials, Intel, National Semiconductor and Yahoo! at rates 15 to 45 percent below neighboring communities.
About SEPA
SEPA (www.solarelectricpower.org) is an educational non-profit organization based in Washington dedicated to helping utilities integrate solar power into their energy portfolios. SEPA’s utility membership represents more than 95 percent of the nation’s annual installed solar capacity and 47 percent of all U.S. electric customers.
