World’s largest airport solar farm goes functional at Indianapolis

Indianapolis International Airport (IND) Solar Farm project is completed and the plant has become fully operational by now.

An integral part of one of America’s greenest airports, the 7.5MW solar farm promotes an environmentally-friendly and energy efficient terminal campus.

This largest airport-based solar farm is comprised of 32,100 sun-tracking panels, with an efficiency to produce around 31 million kilowatt hours of electric energy annually.

The generated electricity is sufficient to power nearly 3,200 average homes for a year.

The $65 million solar farm has grown to 151 acres from its current 75 acres, according to airport spokesperson.

The produced power will be purchased by Indianapolis Power & Light Company (IPL), which costs three to four times more than the price for which IPL can sell it.

Besides, IPL has subsidized the difference by raising rates to its customers. Solar farms also benefit from federal tax credits.

“The IND Solar Farm is a symbol of sustainability and new economic development for Central Indiana. Not only has it become a part of the IND landscape – it now also helps drive significant revenue for the economy that once was just unused land,” pointed out, Michael Wells, president, IAA board of directors.

The airport now has a total of 76,000 solar photovoltaic panels that turn sunlight into electricity and feed that power into the local electrical grid.

The solar farm will be owned and operated by Taiwan-based General Energy Solutions, which has U.S. offices in California and the developers were Telamon and Johnson Melloh Solutions of Indianapolis.

Sabeena Wahid
[email protected]