Pacific Gas & Electric Corp.’s (NYSE: PCG) PG&E Co. is one step closer to owning 50 megawatts of solar power and well on its way to owning 250 MWs of solar. The company announced last week that it completed the purchase of three sites for photovoltaic farms and that it was breaking ground on the projects, which should be complete by the third quarter of 2011.

Many of the large-scale developments going on in California, Arizona and Nevada are being done under power-purchase agreements, removing the risk of unexpected development costs from the utilities. But under this project, the company will own the sites, the equipment and the electricity produced, said spokesperson Jonathan Marshall.

One site, a 15 MW farm, is being developed by Solon, the other two are being developed by Cupertino Electric, Marshall said.

This is the first phase of a multi-year program, according to Marshall.

“We’re looking at doing 50 megawatts a year, over five years, and this would be the first year,” he said. “The whole project will be within our service area. But we haven’t yet announced where other sites will be.”

The company is using this program to get more solar online quickly.

“Part of the goal of this program was to develop projects in a size range and with a technology that will allow them to come to market more quickly than some of the larger projects we’ve contracted for,” Marshall said.

This program compliments another 250 MWs of photovoltaics that will be added through long-term contracts with solar electric generators between 1 MW and 20 MWs in size.

And that’s in addition to the large-scale solar projects under power-purchase agreements planned for other locations.

“We have contracts with developers like BrightSource Energy for very large projects out in the desert,” Marshall said. “They will be great when they come online.” But that could take some time, he said.

Those projects are more likely to face legal challenges, siting challenges and more, according to Marshall.

“This program will help bring solar energy online more quickly albeit in smaller quantities,” he said.

Image courtesy of PG&E.