Wells Fargo & Co. has provided financing for an 11.3 MW solar project developed by Sun Edison LLC, a subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials. El Paso Electric Co. will purchase the output from the solar array under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA).
Located in southern New Mexico near El Paso, Texas, the El Chaparral Solar Farm is situated on more than 140 acres of land and comprises over 40,300 solar modules. The facility is designed to produce approximately 26 GWh of energy annually.
This is the sixth SunEdison utility-scale solar project funded by Wells Fargo in the past year. Wells Fargo says it has invested more than $1 billion in solar project equity investments since 2007, including six utility-scale solar PV projects and a utility-scale concentrating solar thermal power plant.
According to El Paso Electric CEO Tom Shockley, the utility’s renewable energy projects and PPAs currently represent almost 3% of the company’s net dedicated generating capacity.
