By Thomas Miner

March 16, 2010 – The CNN media mogul’s newest venture with energy giant Southern Company, Southern Turner Renewable Energy, has landed their first U.S. project. They will be purchasing a 30 megawatt solar project in northern New Mexico from the thin film solar manufacturer First Solar.
First Solar will continue acting as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the project, according to Recharge. The construction will begin this month and should be completed before the end of 2010. First Solar will also be under contract with Southern Turner for continuing operations and maintenance of the plant, which uses 500,000 thin film photovoltaic panels – a product the company already manufactures.
The alliance between Southern Company and Turner was formed in late January of this year to pursue the development of large scale photovoltaic energy projects in the southwestern United States. One goal of the partnership is to further commercialize cutting-edge solar technologies, in turn making them more cost competitive with traditional sources of energy. While one of the major assets of the alliance is their vast land holdings on which they can build renewable energy projects (Turner is the largest single landowner in North America), the company’s first project actually sits on land adjacent to that of Turner’s.
Power from the project, dubbed Cimmaron I, is already sold as well – Southern Turner has signed a 25 year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, an energy wholesaler servicing 44 electricity cooperatives in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming.
This is not Turner’s first dealings with First Solar either – the company purchased Turner Renewable Energy LLC, a company funded by Turner, in 2007.