The City of Industry, Calif., will be bringing together a trio of pollution reduction solutions when it completes the installation of a 2-megawatt photovoltaic carport array. The carport will cover roughly 1,000 parking spots, will include electric vehicle (EV) chargers and will be located at the city’s Metrolink public transportation station.

This is the first solar installation undertaken by the city, said John Ballas, city engineer for the City of Industry. The city is beginning the selection process and is allowing installers to submit for pre-qualification before it bids the project out.

“We’re going to send it out for public bid [after the pre-qualification process].”

While some solar carport solutions with EV chargers charge the vehicles with power produced directly from the photovoltaic panels, that’s not the case with this system. The photovoltaics will directly provide power to the grid and the EV chargers will provide power from the grid, Ballas said.

Companies have already expressed interest in the project according to Ballas.

“I think we have 15 or 16 names. We want to get the word out as much as we can,” he said.

The city plans to begin construction on the project by this summer and foresees that the project will be completed by February 2012.

The installation is expected to cost the city around $10 or $11 million. The money will be more than recouped, however.

Ballas said the city signed a 20 year power-purchase agreement with Southern California Edison, which will purchase the power produced by the array. He could not discuss the price.

The project is one of the 36 that Edison agreed to purchase electricity from as part of its Utility-Scale Solar Rooftop Project.

Edison will award 250 megawatts of contracts to independent power producers like the City of Industry. The round of awards that included the City of Industry’s parking project included 60 megawatts of awards. It was announced in July 2010.

Edison will also construct and own 250 megawatts of solar on warehouse rooftops in its service area.

Image courtesy of Intertie.