Salt River Project's (SRP) first owned and operated solar facility, the 55-megawatt (MW) Copper Crossing Energy and Research Center (CCERC) PV Solar Project, is now serving customers.
In addition to providing enough solar energy to power 11,000 Arizona homes for a year, the CCERC PV Solar Project is helping SRP teams research the effectiveness of advanced solar technology. The project uses three different types of photovoltaic solar panels, and SRP will analyze and compare each technology to determine which panels are most durable, perform the best under varied weather conditions and provide the highest, most consistent output.
The site will also test three types of solar trackers and three different inverters devices that convert the direct current electricity generated by solar panels into alternating current electricity, which is the standard energy used by customers to find which combinations and independent technologies are most effective for long-term planning.
"The SRP-owned solar project at Copper Crossing will be part of delivering reliable, affordable power to customers in time for what we expect will be record demand this summer," said Bobby Olsen, SRP Associate General Manager and Chief Power System Executive. "This facility gives us the opportunity to support customer needs for reliable, affordable energy while continuing to refine these benefits at a scale that will translate to future deployments in the field and in the operating centers."
Located in Florence, AZ, the CCERC also houses sky cameras, which capture images of the sky in real-time to test a new method that more accurately estimates cloud impacts to help SRP improve forecasting for solar production.
SRP is working to at least double its generation capacity to meet projected energy demand in the next 10 years while maintaining reliability and affordability and making progress toward our sustainability goals, which include achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050. SRP will accomplish this through an all of the above approach that plans to add natural gas, renewable and storage resources, including pumped hydro.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest electricity provider in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving about 1.1 million customers. SRP provides water to about 2.5 million Valley residents, delivering 260 billion gallons of water (800,000 acre-feet) each year, and manages a 13,000-square-mile watershed that includes an extensive system of reservoirs, wells, irrigation laterals, and 131 miles of canals.
