Sun Power Electric-a solar utility

Sun Power Electric is the first all-solar electric utility formed to sell electricity to commercial customers (hosts) and renewable energy credits (RECs) to retailers of green power and "green tags" in deregulated utility markets. The solar utility is financed and managed by Conservation Services Group (CSG) with headquarters in Westborough, Massachusetts. The first solar power plant was installed in December 1998 and the latest was dedicated on May 16, 2002. The total generating capacity of Sun Power Electric is 191 kilowatt-AC from 5 solar power plants located on the roofs of the host commercial buildings. The electrical output of each plant is sold to the hosts and the RECs are sold in the green market to green electric providers such as Green Mountain Energy and directly to consumers as tradable renewable credits (TRCs). In 2001 the first four Sun Power Electric power plants produced 146685 kWh of solar electricity. The plants were projected to produce 166800 annually. The output was down by 12% mostly due to module and wiring problems at one of the stations. The problems have been corrected and the annual output should be closer to the annual predictions for 2002.