OREANDA-NEWS. NRG's commercial renewable development unit will supply 20MW of solar generation to Cisco System's Silicon Valley headquarters in California.

The deal will use generation from NRG's Solar Blythe II facility in the Sonoran Desert, on the border of California and Arizona, as part of a 20-year power-purchase agreement. Terms were not made public.

For Cisco, the 20MW will help the global technology company meet up to 25pc of its electricity demand by 2017, if the project goes on line as expected next year. Although the company has secured rights to generation from a 2MW solar plant in Massachusetts, the deal with NRG is its most concentrated move to achieving its renewable goals, particularly for its California operations.

"Partnerships with industry leaders like Cisco are a key part of our vision for a clean energy future," NRG Renew chief executive Tom Doyle said.

NRG Renew, which operates as NRG's business-to-business renewable developer, has in recent months become a key part of NRG's broader corporate strategy. The company builds systems at business customers' facilities to help meet its electricity demand.

NRG Renew manages or is developing about 4,200MW of wind and solar capacity, including 170MW of distributed solar for health care provider Kaiser Permanente's properties in California.