CAROLINA PV SOLAR POWER PLANT PUTS OUT

Solar farm is producing energy
Vikki Broughton Hodges, February 4, 2010 (Lexington Dispatch)

"SunEdison’s photovoltaic solar farm just outside Lexington is now online and providing 4 megawatts of generation capacity to Charlotte-based Duke Energy [since the last week in December], which is buying the farm’s entire output under a 20-year contract…

"The solar farm will generate more than 6 million kilowatt hours of electricity in the first year of operation. Over 20 years, the farm will generate 115 million kilowatt hours of electricity — enough to power 10,000 average homes for one year. It also will offset more than 225 million pounds of carbon dioxide that otherwise would have been emitted from a traditional coal-burning power plant…"

This makes it harder for New Energy naysayers to argue the Southeast doesn't have resources. (click to enlarge)

"Construction on the first phase of the project, involving the installation of about 16,000 solar panels, was completed in December at the 356-acre site…When the project is completed, 64,000 rotating blue and silver solar panels that track the sun’s movement will absorb sunlight and convert it into direct-current electricity, which a device then will convert into alternating-current electricity. A Duke Energy substation near the farm will change the voltage of the AC power before distributing it through power lines.

"…Duke Energy’s contract to purchase the 16 megawatts of power the completed project will produce is part of the company’s compliance with North Carolina’s new renewable energy standard, which requires each public electric utility to meet at least 12.5 percent of its North Carolina retail customers’ electricity needs through new renewable energy sources or energy efficiency measures by 2021. The utility provider needs to sell 12,000 megawatt hours of solar energy per year by 2010 and 10 times that amount by 2018…"