Known for his social conscious and his admiration for the Joshua trees common in the desert Southwest, Bono would approve of the deal signed by EDF Renewable Energy, the U.S. unit of French utility EDF, to sell electricity from its 500 MW solar farm near the Joshua Tree National Park to Southern California Edision (SCE) under a 15-year power-purchase agreement (PPA).

The Maverick Solar project (formerly named Palen 1) is the fifth significant utility-scale solar plant in Riverside County, California, joining McCoy, Desert Sunlight, Genesis and Blythe.

SCE has asked the California Public Commisssion (CPUC) for approval of the PPA, and the CPUC has before it a resolution to do just that. It is currently scheduled for a vote on June 29.

Even after CPUC approval, however, EDF must wait for further approvals from Riverside County and the federal Bureau of Land Management, who are reviewing the potential environmental effects of the project. Those approvals are expected to come by the end of the year but are not guaranteed. As Sammy Roth of The Desert Sun reported:

SCE will purchase 125 MW-AC with enough power – 406 gigawatt-hours – to provide electricity for 60,000 average California homes. Though the total capacity for the plant could reach 500 MW, EDF can start construction with this first contract.

Riverside County is a hotbed for utility-scale development these days, with at least three other projects at different places in the development cycle. They include:

• SunPower  400 MW Arica project;
• Recurrent Energy‘s  350 MW Crimson project; and
• First Solar’s proposed 300 MW Desert Quartzite plant.