Electrify America said it signed a 15-year virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with developer Terra-Gen to build a 75 MW solar photovoltaic renewable energy generation project in San Bernardino County, California.

The two also signed an interim VPPA, effective in October, to support Terra-Gen’s existing Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) IX solar thermal plant until the adjacent new solar photovoltaic facility is fully operational.

Electrify America will receive the bundled environmental certificates and buy renewable energy from SEGS IX.

The Electrify America solar project is expected to have an annual production of 225,000 MWh and would be used to offset the energy currently delivered on an annualized basis to Electrify America’s customers charging on its network. The solar project is targeted to be operational by mid-2023.

Electrify America said it plans to buy and retire all bundled environmental certificates associated with the new solar project over a 15-year period.

The project may be expanded at the option of Terra-Gen to include a co-located battery energy storage system. The potential use of a co-located battery energy storage system at the facility would add to Electrify America’s plan to deploy more than 30 MW of co-located behind-the-meter energy storage systems at charging stations across the U.S. 

The EV charging provider said that its network is currently entirely backed by renewable energy through the purchase of environmental certificates from existing renewable generation.

According to the California Energy Commission, SEGS IX consists of an 80 MW field of parabolic mirrors supplemented by natural gas to produce electricity. Heat from the mirrors is concentrated on tubes of heat transfer fluid which is circulated to steam boilers to produce electricity. The project distributes electricity to the Southern California Edison transmission grid.