Southern California Edison (SCE) announced 36 awards for photovoltaic (PV) installations as part of its solar rooftops project on July 27. The awards total 60 megawatts (MWs) of PV power that will be installed over the next few years. The awards represent the first round of contracts to independent power producers under contract with SCE.

Overall, the utility’s solar rooftops project will add 500 MWs of PV to California’s grid in the near future. Under the project, half of the PV will be owned by SCE and the remaining 250 MWs will be owned by independent power producers. The utility said that solar panels will be installed on 31 rooftops and five ground-mounted sites. In March, SCE announced that SunPower will provide the majority, 200 MWs of the 250 MWs of PV power that SCE will own.

Of the recent contract winners, Solyndra, Inc.’s Photon Solar subsidiary won 18 contracts for rooftop installations, the most among the applicants. Together the awards represent 16.2 MWs of the 60 MWs awarded. The contracts call for Photon’s installations to provide power to SCE for 20 years. The company plans to have all the installations completed and online by May 2011.

PV-Tech observed that Solyndra is the first company using copper indium gallium (di)selenide PV panels to win an award from the SCE distributed-generation program.

Solyndra said that its panels are ideal for large rooftop installations, since they’re lightweight—under three pounds per square foot installed—and unlike other PV panels, they’re round. Solyndra contended that the cylindrical modules have advantages over other PV panels, because they “allow wind to pass through, which eliminates the need for heavy brackets, weights, and roof surface penetrations that are common with traditional solar modules.” The company added that the PV systems are easily moveable should the need arise.

Marc Ulrich, SCE vice president of Renewables and Alternative Power said SCE is pleased “that Solyndra designs and manufactures their panels in California, which means this project is maintaining and creating jobs here in our State."