Duke Energy Purchases two California Solar Farms

U.S. utility giant Duke Energy Corp.

said Wednesday that it has purchased two solar farms in the California desert. The solar facilities, near Twentynine Palms, Calif., together will have a capacity of 21 megawatts and were developed by the U.S. arm of Germany-based solar-panel maker SolarWorld AG (SWV.XE). Duke, of Charlotte, N.C., declined to say how much it paid for the solar projects, but said they're part of more than $2.5 billion worth of wind farms and solar-power generators that the Duke unit has invested in over the years. The company bought the facilities as part of its commercial renewable-energy business, which is separate from the company's regulated utility business in the U.S. Southeast and Midwest. The California solar facilities have 20-year contracts to sell the electricity they generate to Edison International's (EIX) southern California utility. The solar projects were still under construction and scheduled to be complete by June, said Tammie McGee, a spokeswoman for Duke. California utilities must use solar, wind or other renewable power for a third of the electricity they sell by 2020, under the state's plan to fight climate change. Duke Energy's renewable-energy business owns 14 other solar farms in North Carolina, Arizona, Texas and Florida, and it owns 15 wind farms in Texas, Wyoming, Kansas and other states, according to a list of the unit's holdings. Duke sells the solar and wind power from the facilites to other utilities. Duke Energy's utilities, which serve more than 7 million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, buy renewable energy from other facilities, but not from Duke's renewable-energy business, said Tammie McGee, a spokeswoman for Duke. "We've traditionally tried to keep them separate," Ms. McGee said.