California's Energy Commission approved plans for the state's first hybrid solar-power plant, helping clear the way for construction to begin later this year.

Approval of the $1 billion project came at the commission's regular meeting today. Commercial operation is scheduled for the first quarter of 2009, Tom Barnett, executive vice president of Inland Energy Inc., the closely held plant developer, said in an interview before the vote.

The 563-megawatt plant will be owned by the city of Victorville, California, using a 250-acre (102-hectare) array of solar collectors to augment the output of natural-gas-fueled turbine generators. The city is buying the gas-turbine plant from General Electric Co. and has been in talks with makers of solar-heat collectors, including Spain's Abengoa SA, Barnett said.

``This is a major approval and we expect to have all the others this month,'' Barnett said.

The project cost includes $200 million for a new high- voltage power line that will eventually be purchased at cost by Edison International's Southern California Edison unit, Barnett said. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will finance the project, he said.

FPL Group Inc., the biggest U.S. wind-power developer, on June 25 announced plans to add 75 megawatts of solar capacity to an existing natural-gas fueled plant in Martin County, Florida.

Victorville is ``actively discussing'' additional generators, including a large solar-powered plant and may propose a nuclear plant after the hybrid is complete, Mayor Terry Caldwell told the commission after the vote.