The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Forest Service, awarded a contract for the federal government’s first-ever joint solar power procurement in California and Nevada. Solar developer SolarCity Corp. of San Mateo, California, was awarded a power purchase agreement (PPA) as part of the Federal Aggregated Solar Procurement Pilot (FASPP) – a strategic sourcing project that combines several small to mid-size photovoltaic (PV) installation opportunities within northern California and northern Nevada into a single procurement.

The DOE Federal Energy Management Program funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) along with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to support the agencies with this innovative project; LBNL and NREL will continue to be involved through construction, commission and life of contract performance monitoring. 

The FASPP effort incorporates three new innovations not seen before.  This is the first federal aggregated project that yielded very competitive renewable power pricing $/kWh. Several sites have solar shaded carports, which will be outfitted as "electric vehicle ready" allowing for easy installation of chargers at a later date without the need to retrench the parking lots. Finally, this project was the first use of the GSA long-term contract authority for utilities (FAR Part 41), which used a 10-year base year with a 10-year option period. 

Under this PPA, SolarCity Corporation will install and operate the PV systems, spanning nine federal sites in San Jose, Menlo Park, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Bruno, Santa Rosa, Vallejo, Carson City, and Reno, and sell power by the kilowatt-hour to the federal government. Initially, the project will produce up to 5 megawatts of solar power across the multiple sites in California and Nevada and has the potential to serve as a model for how federal entities nationwide can partner to procure renewable energy.