Southern California Gas Co. Wednesday doled out its first two grants to businesses to help subsidize their move to distributed generation as part of a three-year, $54 million program by the nation’s largest gas distributor. Under a program approved last year by state regulators, SoCalGas can provide up to half the cost of on-site self-generation.

As part of a statewide self-generation program in California, SoCalGas awarded $135,000 to an Arcadia, CA firm making “micro-injection products” for trees as an environmentally benign way of protecting them from insects, diseases and nutritional deficiencies for a 30-kV photovoltaic power generation system. Also this month, the utility helped the world’s largest maker of chrome bumpers with “several thousands of dollars” to help underwrite the cost of installing four 30-kW microturbines.

Richard Morrow, the Sempra utilities’ customer services vice president for commercial industrial markets, said the new program “makes the purchase and installation of eligible technologies more affordable than ever,” helping the customers become more efficient and energy self-reliant.

The program offers the incentives for customers looking to develop about 50 to 60 kW of baseload generation capability, providing $4.50/watt for photovoltaic, wind turbines and fuel cells operating on renewable fuels, $2.50/watt for fuel cells on nonrenewable fuels, and $1/watt for microturbines and internal-combustion engines. These installations generally represent the peak-loan capacity available to the customers from peaking plants.

More information on the SoCalGas program is available on the web at: www.socalgas.com

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