Mississippi solar generation projects review
Bates White was retained by the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff to conduct a review of the Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity Applications and the associated Power Purchase Agreements filed with respect to two solar generation projects in Mississippi in order to assess both the economics of the proposed projects and the risks that the generator and its ratepayers would be exposed to by entering into these agreements. In particular, Bates White's analyses assessed whether or not the PPAs under consideration provided value for the Mississippi ratepayers. Our work examined 1) the validity and reasonableness of the solar-weighted avoided cost methodology used by the generator to evaluate the project economics; 2) how the levelized cost of energy of the proposed projects compared with those of other recent solar PPAs in order to evaluate the reasonableness of the proposed PPA prices; 3) the proposed project development schedules, the companies' financial capability and project development experience, and the risks of not meeting the projects development milestones; 4) the important non-price factors that materially influence project viability and feasibility; 5) the appropriateness of recovering the purchased power costs through the Fuel Cost Recovery mechanism; and, 6) assessed whether the proposed PPAs were in the public interest.