Premier Power Renewable Energy, Inc.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), one of the area’s leading advocates for solar power, wanted to make clean energy available to any of its ratepayers. SMUD contracted with enXco, an EDF Energies Nouvelles Company specializing in Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), to build a solar plant over about 8.5 acres of land with the capacity to serve between 800 and 1,000 customers. enXco would own and maintain the solar equipment and SMUD would agree to purchase the electricity at a fixed rate for the next 20 years.

It was May of 2008. For the program to have maximum impact, the solar plant needed to start producing electricity as soon as possible, preferably within the next two months during solar’s peak-production period. With a mere six weeks to complete the installation, only Premier Power stepped up to the challenge. Not only did Premier Power complete the 1.2 MW solar farm within the deadline, but it was able to do so with minimal environmental impact. By using a VibraHammer to push the poles into the ground, a technique normally associated with construction of highway safety rails, Premier Power sidestepped traditional methods that called for injecting 170 to 340 tons of cement into the ground. At the end of the solar plant’s 20+ year life span, Premier Power can lift the ballasts and use a reverse-vibration process to pull the poles out for re-use, leaving the land in its original, pre-installation state.