Recurrent, ProLogis team up for 4.8 MW of rooftop solar in Spain

Recurrent Energy, a rooftop solar power developer in the U.S., has branched globally, teaming with major warehouse builder ProLogis to turn thousands of square feet of roof in Madrid and Barcelona into a distributed 4.8 megawatt powerplant — large enough to electrify close to 4,000 homes — by the middle of 2010.
The most interesting part of the story may very well be the choice of Spain for the deal. Recurrent Energy is based in San Francisco and ProLogis is headquartered in Denver — and this is the first time the former has developed projects overseas. With Germany ans Spain leading the charge on photovoltaic energy in Europe, it’s not too surprising, but the dynamics are interesting.
According to Recurrent CEO Arno Harris, his company wasn’t sure it would continue to benefit from federal incentives for solar in 2009. This provided the impetus to diversify and look for partnerships internationally. On top of that, Spain’s generous feed-in tariff offerings — requiring utilities to pay solar developers a certain amount for every kilowatt-hour delivered — eased the economics of large-scale development, which was very attractive to the two companies.
While Harris says the tariff arrangement has been a very successful policy for both Spain and Germany, both countries have come close to oversaturating their solar markets, and have reeled back subsidies in the last several months. This didn’t impact Recurrent’s deal with ProLogis, but may have some determining influence over future similar deals abroad. Harris says his company is in talks with several other large contractors and construction companies to install large rooftop solar arrays. He says they prefer to work with companies like ProLogis that own many buildings with large flat roofs (in this case, eight of them) so that separate deals don’t have to be made for each building.
Also by choosing to install large arrays on rooftops instead of swaths of land, like many other photovoltaic developers, Recurrent says it is avoiding permitting and land management hurdles that could potentially stall projects for years. The deal with ProLogis allows Recurrent to lease the rooftop space so that it can independently finance and retain ownership of its solar systems. The power generated by the photovoltaic panels will be channeled into the electrical grid and delivered via local utilities (the ones ponying up the feed-in tariff fees, which Recurrent qualified for in July).
This model is very similar to that of companies like SolarCity and SunRun, both of which build and own rooftop solar installations, opting to sell the power to consumers and utilities.
ProLogis will be providing the solar company some construction help — as will local Spanish contractors, engineering firms and consultants — but not much else. The project is expected to start next month.
Backed by Hudson Clean Energy Partners, among others, Recurrent Energy made headlines back in May when it was tapped by the City of San Francisco to build a 25,000-panel, 5-megawatt array in the Sunset Reservoir, slated to power municipal buildings.