Two major solar farms in Cochise County will start supplying customers of Tucson Electric Power Co. with clean energy by the end of next year, after state regulators approved power-supply agreements filed by TEP.
The Arizona Corporation Commission on Wednesday approved agreements for TEP to buy power from the planned Babacomari North and Babacomari South photovoltaic projects — which at a capacity of 80 megawatts each would serve some 20,000 homes, as the second-largest solar farms serving Tucson.
The projects were proposed by Idaho-based developer Clenera on the Babacomari Ranch, southwest of the junction of State Routes 90 and 82 and northwest of Huachuca City. TEP expects the North phase of the project to begin supplying solar power by the end of 2022, and the South phase to go online by mid-2023.
The projects are the first to supply TEP with power under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, or PURPA, a federal law that requires utility to buy power from qualifying renewable-energy projects when the cost is less than what the utility would otherwise pay to generate power or buy it from other sources.
TEP says that under its agreement with an affiliate of Clenera, the Babacomari projects are “qualifying facilities” under PURPA and the utility will get the full output of the solar plants for 18 years — the minimum term for such contracts under landmark rules adopted by the Corporation Commission in 2019.
TEP and Arizona Public Service Co., the largest state-regulated utility, opposed the 18-year requirement for PURPA contracts, arguing that that the utility and ratepayers could get locked into overpriced contracts as costs drop in the future.
The PURPA projects will help TEP toward its clean-energy goals of 70% renewable energy and an 80% cut in carbon emissions by 2035.
