First Solar (FSLR -1.39%) announced today that it will build a 250 MW solar farm for NextEra Energy (NEE 0.51%) in Southern California .
The project is a collaborative effort between both companies, as well as the government. The "McCoy Solar Energy Project" will be primarily located on around 2,300 acres of public land provided by the Bureau of Land Management, and will be built using First Solar's cadmium telluride (CdTe) photovoltaic (PV) thin-film modules .
NextEra and First Solar are also currently partnering (along with General Electric Financial Services and Sumitomo) on the nearby 550 MW Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, allowing the two corporations to capitalize on economies of scale for both construction and operating phases.
Construction is expected to begin in late 2014, and the farm should come online in late 2016. According to Bloomberg, Edison International has agreed to buy up the plant's power under a long-term contract, another step in the utility's struggle to regain capacity lost from its recently retired nuclear facility.
