Southern California Edison recently signed a series of agreements for more than 600 megawatts of solar- and wind- generated electricity, enough to supply 400,000 households, the electrical utility said in a press release Wednesday morning.

The utility, which serves Riverside County and most of Southern California aside from the city of Los Angeles and San Diego County, said it had agreed to buy electricity from two solar generating facilities in the desert towns of Blythe and Ridgecrest.

Both would use solar-thermal systems of parabolic mirrors to reflect sunlight into tubes filled with fluid, which vaporize, driving generation turbines. Each would have a capacity of 242 megawatts by 2014; one could later be expanded to 484 megawatts, Edison said.

The utility said it also signed contracts to begin buying 130 megawatts of wind power from facilities in central Oregon and southeastern Idaho by the end of 2010. The wind farms could later be expanded to a total capacity of 234 megawatts.

Edison says 16 percent of its energy portfolio comes from renewable sources, including geothermal, wind and solar power. A Senate bill passed in 2006 requires utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewables by 2010.

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ENERGY: SoCal Edison signs large solar-power deal