Construction on Arizona Electric Power Cooperative’s (AEPCO) 20 MW Apache Solar Project in Cochise, AZ., is nearly complete, with September generation slated to come online while the Apache Coal unit 2 is converted from coal to natural gas.
A contract for engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) was awarded in November 2016 to Swinerton Renewable Energy (SRE). The array will include over 77,000 Jinko solar panels mounted on Array single-axis trackers.
The 20 MW Apache Solar array will serve six electricity cooperatives in the area, including Sulphur Springs Valley Electric, Graham County, Duncan Valley, Mohave and TRICO, in Arizona, as well as Anza in California. The service area includes over 400,000 individual residential, commercial, agricultural, and industrial consumers.
AEPCO also owns and maintains more than 620 miles of transmission lines and 26 substations providing wholesale electric power to the six member distribution cooperatives located in southern Arizona, western New Mexico, northwestern Arizona and California.
Before AEPCO launched its renewables program, nearly 80 percent of the energy it delivered to its cooperative members came from the coal-fired Apache Generating Station, also near Cochise.
Unemployment in the area has been a hot issue. Swinerton Renewable made many local hires for the Apache Solar Project and is keeping some of those workers on staff for solar projects elsewhere in the country.
Swinerton Renewables also built the 75 MW Red Horse II Solar and Project, which also utilized Jinko solar panels.
Correction: This article was corrected on June 13. The new version corrects an earlier story which incorrectly stated that a 2018 shut down of the Apache Coal Plant was planned.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.