Federal Aggregated Solar Procurement Pilot

“As a land management agency concerned with precious natural resources, it is exciting to be involved in a program that parallels our other sustainability efforts. To meet many of our future restoration goals, we need great collaboration and strong partnerships, and I see that mirrored here with this solar project.”

— Randy Moore, Pacific Southwest Regional Forester for the U.S. Forest Service

“This groundbreaking project will make it easier for federal agencies to use onsite renewable power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving taxpayer dollars. This initiative is a great way to showcase how the federal government is leading by example and taking advantage of the incredible opportunities to build a clean energy economy, especially given the historic agreement in Paris.”

— Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, Christine Harada

Federal agencies have been working to develop and apply different financial models to achieve the goals set by Executive Order 13693. One notable success is the first ever joint Federal solar power purchase agreement (PPA) announced on December 15, 2015, in which the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) partnered with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Forest Service to procure clean energy in a new and creative way.

The innovative partnership, called the Federal Aggregate Solar Procurement Pilot (FASPP), is a strategic sourcing project that unites several small to mid-size PV installation opportunities, including rooftop, ground-mounted, and parking lot canopies on federal property within northern California and northern Nevada into a single procurement. The objective is to demonstrate that joint procurement, in this case combining the efforts of multiple federal agencies and one private company, will result in greater project efficiency and cost effectiveness.

“Innovative procurements like the FASPP efforts are critical elements in the DOE’s strategy to facilitate broad adoption of renewables at federal sites in order to achieve federal mandates, reduce taxpayer costs, increase resiliency of power supplies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

— Tim Unruh, Director, Federal Energy Management Program

Besides saving taxpayers an estimated $15 million over 19 production years, the FASPP is also expected to help federal sustainability efforts by reducing 40,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

Key Details of the FASPP PPA

The pathbreaking Federal Aggregate Solar Procurement Pilot will install approximately five megawatts of PV solar energy capacity across nine federal sites in California and Nevada, including San Jose, Menlo Park, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Bruno, Vallejo, Carson City and Reno. Like most PPAs, the PV systems will be owned, operated, and installed by a private solar services provider, in this case SolarCity Corporation. Electricity will then be sold to the Federal Agencies by the kilowatt-hour.

The contract term length is also an important step forward for Federal agencies who by and large have been hamstrung by the prohibition against signing electricity procurement contracts of more than 10 years. This deal was made possible by combining a guarantee that the government will pay for electricity for the first decade of the contract, with an option to extend the contract for an additional 10 years. This contract term length, if implemented further for future renewable energy procurement, has the potential to provide a broader appeal across the whole federal family. Federal Chief Sustainability Officer, Christine Harada expects that “this groundbreaking project will make it easier for federal agencies to use onsite renewable power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving taxpayer dollars.” Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest also has confidence in the partnership. He states that, “this project exemplifies the President’s call for federal agencies to increase their renewable electricity portfolios to 30 percent by 2025 and leverage their combined purchasing power. FASPP demonstrates that both greenhouse gas and utility bill reductions are possible and should be scaled up throughout the federal family.” The FASPP was designed to take advantage of economies of scale in solar installation with no up-front cost to the government and serve as a model for federal collaboration in the procurement process for renewable energy PPAs.