Colorado company building Westside solar park

Juwi solar Inc., based in Boulder, Colorado, will sell the generated electricity to JEA over 30 years. Less than 1 percent of the public utilityÂ’s electrical capacity comes from alternative energy.

JEA will buy 22,430 megawatt-hours of electricity from Juwi in 2010 for about $3.5 million.

The utility plans to buy enough electricity to power 40,000 homes from a Hamilton County plant that will turn wood waste into energy. Duke Energy Corp., one of the nationÂ’s largest electric power companies, and Areva Inc., an international nuclear power providerÂ’s American subsidiary, are building a $200 million biopower facility will have a 50-megawatt capacity when it goes online in 2012.