Dimension Energy has completed a 44-MW community solar project in the high desert of Inyokern, California.
The project, located on a 130-acre site, will produce 44 MW of clean energy to serve a diverse group of residential and commercial customers in Southern California Edison service territory, including in the cities of Corona and Long Beach. The beneficiaries included are over 2,000 households, supportive housing organization the Redwood Family Care Network, municipal facilities in the cities of Long Beach and Corona, and commercial offtakers like AT&T and Crown Castle.
Dimension has secured over $100 million in total project capital for the project. The deal included partners like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank; National Bank of Canada, Comerica, and NT Solar.
“We turned a struggling utility-scale site into the largest community solar project in the country despite tremendous policy hurdles in the state by taking advantage of the niche Green Tariff Enhanced Community Renewables program,” said Sam Younes, co-founder & chief development officer at Dimension Energy, in a statement. “We turned a struggling utility scale site into the largest community solar project in the country despite tremendous policy hurdles in the state by taking advantage of the niche Green Tariff Enhanced Community Renewables program. Aside from our Inyokern project, this program has been essentially non-functional.”
The Inyokern facility will deliver enough clean energy to eliminate 21,667 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually (the equivalent of annual emissions from more than 4,700 cars) following activation by the end of 2024.
Dimension expects to develop future community solar projects which can replace polluting peaker plants in historically impacted communities and provide support for community organizations like the Redwood Family Care Network.
Community solar offers clean energy customers a less expensive entry point than residential rooftop solar, and is considered as a more direct, localized link than utility-scale renewable energy projects which interconnect into the larger grid from a transmission or distribution point.
Inyokern's nickname is "Sunshine Capital of America."
