The solar project, spread out in an area of 1000 acres, will produce enough electricity to power at least 45,000 US households.

Sonoma Clean Power and MCE will buy the energy generated at the project under long-term power purchase agreements.

Construction of the project began in summer 2015. Blattner Energy acted as the engineering procurement and construction services (EPC) for the project.

During the peak construction period, the project created about 450 local jobs.

In the same year, Recurrent Energy received tax equity investment of about $101m from US Bancorp Community Development Corporation (USBCDC) for the solar project.

Canadian Solar chairman and CEO Shawn Qu said: "The commercial operation of the Mustang solar project continues a historic year that will see Recurrent Energy complete more than one gigawatt of US solar photovoltaic (PV) projects."

USBCDC vice president Adam Altenhofen said: "High-quality solar projects like Mustang are an important strategic investment for US Bank, which provide jobs to local communities, while delivering clean, reliable energy to the state of California."

Recurrent Energy has a portfolio of more than 4GW of solar energy projects under development in North America.

Its parent company, Canadian Solar is a solar PV module manufacturer, which has delivered about 15GW of solar modules in over 90 countries around the world, in its 14 years of activity.

Image: Recurrent Energy begins commercial operations at the 100MW Mustang solar plant. Photo: Courtesy of khunaspix/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.