By
GreenTech Lead Team: Austin Energy, a community-owned electric
utility company, announced that it has activated a 30 megawatt (MW) solar power
plant located within the Village of Webberville, Texas. This is the first
utility-scale solar deployment for Austin Energy.
This
new facility helps Austin Energy bring the utility to achieve a 35 percent
renewable energy mix by 2020. It is the largest active solar project of any
public power utility in the country. The project was activated on
December 20, 2011.
The
380 acre, 30 MW solar project installed more than 127,000 photovoltaic solar
modules mounted on single-axis trackers that follow the sun to maximize solar
energy production. The solar power has a capacity to produce more than 61
million kilowatt-hours of clean solar energy and is expected to offsett more
than 1.6 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere.
“The City
of Austin is proud to support a project that reduces emission levels in
our community, provides energy during hot summer days when it is needed most
and promotes new technologies that future generations can benefit from,”
said Austin
Leffingwell.
The
utility-scale solar project was made possible through a 25-year solar power
purchase agreement in which Austin Energy will purchase the energy at a fixed
rate along with the renewable energy credits.
In
another related industry development, Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECo) completed
2.3 megawatts solar energy facility in the Indian Orchard section of
Springfield. The facility is the second large-scale solar energy plant of
WMECo, features 8,200 solar panels.