San Antonio, Texas, aims to be at the center of the solar universe.

The city’s public utility, CPS Energy, is the largest municipally-owed non-profit utility that handles both gas and electric in the country. It is currently buying power from a Duke Energy-owned 14.4-megawatt solar facility and another 30-megawatt station being built by SunEdison, said Lanny Sinkin, executive director of non-profit advocacy organization Solar San Antonio.

When Doyle Beneby took over as the CEO of CPS Energy in August 2010, he decided not to invest $500 million in cleaning up one of the city’s coal-fired energy plants and instead announced that he would decommission it and transition the city to clean energy by 2018.

When the utility issued a request for proposals for another 50-megawatt solar plant and called for local solar panel manufacturing and assembly facility, Beneby was surprised to receive proposals from 39 respondents, some of which offered multiple proposals, Sinkin said.

The overwhelming response to proposals for more than 50 megawatts resulted in the utility reissuing a 400 megawatt RFP to those 39 respondents.

“The utility offering to buy that much is very attractive to solar manufacturers looking to move here,” Sinkin said.

He said drawing solar manufacturers and companies to San Antonio can only be a good thing for the community, and he’s been impressed with how CPS Energy has worked with city administrators.

“The utility really views itself as a partner in economic development,” Sinkin said. “We want to create more green jobs here. And all of the political landscape is on board for that.”

The utility is also doing its part to encourage residential and small commercial solar installations, Sinkin said. CPS Energy offers a generous incentive for small solar installations. In 2010 fiscal year there were 38 rooftop solar photovoltaic installations in the city. In the 2011 fiscal year there were 157 more and so far in this fiscal year, there are 159 new solar installations, Sinkin said.

With local utility discounts combined with state and federal discounts, a 5-kilowatt system that would typically supply 40 percent of the energy needed in an average home, drops to $11,375 from $27,500, Sinkin said.

In addition to CPS Energy’s efforts to increase renewable energy production, it’s trying to reduce demand for power by 771 megawatts by the year 2020, which is enough to delay the construction on another coal plant, Sinkin said.

The City of San Antonio is on a solar roll and is embracing every element of the clean energy alternative.

Image courtesy of CPS Energy.