Coming Soon: A Raleigh Solar Farm (image courtesy of Suzie T on Flickr)
Yesterday, a new PV installation was approved in North Carolina. The City Council approved a Raleigh Solar Farm on city-owned property at a local wastewater treatment plant. The new development is sure to be a boon to the community as a whole. And, its one of several new solar farms unveiled this week.
The Raleigh solar farm (also known as a solar field) will be online within the next 9-10 months and is expected to generate 1.7 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of clean electricity each year, reducing carbon emissions by over 1300 tons annually. It will be constructed, owned and operated by a consortium made up of Progress Energy Carolinas, Southern Energy and NxGen Power, partnering with the City.
Congratulations to Raleigh! We hope that the new solar farm is a success, and that it spurs on more PV developments.
Meanwhile, we also heard another monumental announcement from the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar:
New solar farms will be on the horizon
Last week, the Department released information that it intends to fast track solar developments on public lands, including those owned/operated by the Bureau of Land Management. As reported on thestreet.com:
The Bureau of Land Management will evaluate the solar suitability of 24 zones of land designated Solar Energy Study Areas in six states — Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. In all, the land comes to 670,000 acres. The department also said it’s opening one of four renewable energy coordination offices in Nevada to help evaluate applications for energy projects. So far, the BLM has received 158 solar-related applications.”
The study areas under consideration could produce about 100,000 megawatts of electricity from solar energy. To put this into perspective, a single megawatt of solar electricity can power 800 homes per year. Multiply that by 100,000 and you can power 80 million homes. That is more than 8 times the population of the City of Los Angeles!
It is so exciting to hear about solar energy on the rise! As Secretary Salazar observed,
“With coordinated environmental studies, good land-use planning and zoning and priority processing, we can accelerate responsible solar energy production that will help build a clean-energy economy for the 21st century.”
I think we’re on our way.
Do you know of any new solar farms in your region? Please share in the comments below.
Tags: BLM, new solar farms, progress energy, raleigh solar farm, solar development public lands, solar field, southern energy
[...] New Solar Farms | Solar Power – PV Panels [...]
[...] New Solar Farms | Solar Power – PV Panels [...]
[...] because wind speeds can vary even more greatly than the strength of ultraviolet light (required for solar power). We cannot control the wind – darn it anyway – so what can be done if we want to rely more on [...]