PERU – The Indiana Municipal Power Agency put its new $5.3-million solar park in Peru onto the grid Tuesday, producing clean energy that will be consumed within the city.
Construction on the project began in April and wrapped up last week on 30 acres of land located at the end of Jackson Avenue, just outside city limits on the east side.
The park contains 11,850 solar panels that are capable of generating 3 megawatts of energy.
Jack Alvey, IMPA’s senior vice president of generation, said all the energy produced by the solar park will be used within the city of Peru, and should generate enough electricity to fully power around 400 homes.
The Peru solar park is the newest in the state, and is the fifth built by IMPA, which provides 59 cities and towns in Indiana with wholesale electricity.
Alvey said the company began constructing solar parks in 2014 to add clean energy to its portfolio of power-supply resources.
Last year, IMPA built 1-megawatt solar farms in Richmond, Frankton and Rensselaer. Another park went in at Tell City in July, and four more will be up and running by the end of the year in Crawfordsville, Pendleton, Argos and Bainbridge.
By the end of the year, Alvey said, the company will be producing a combined 13 megawatts of solar energy across the state. Peru currently is home to IMPA’s largest solar facility.
The ultimate goal of the parks is to prepare the company for more restrictive regulations from federal and state agencies, he said, and those tougher requirements are already on the way.
Earlier this month, President Barack Obama announced the first ever limit on carbon pollution from power plants. The EPA published the final form of the regulations, which require states to work with electricity producers to reduce overall carbon emissions by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
How those regulations will play out in Indiana is currently unknown, Alvey said, but the solar parks are putting IMPA and the state in a better position to meet the new federal requirements.
And the company isn’t done producing more solar energy. He said there are plans to build new facilities into the near future, with the goal of creating at least 10 megawatts of new solar energy every year.
Company officials have said they would like to have a solar park in all 59 of the cities and towns where they supply energy.
But whether that can happen depends on land availability and a city’s willingness to have a solar farm, Alvey said.
“The communities that come to us with the most enthusiasm is where we will go first,” he said.
Brooke Robertson, director of business retention and expansion for the Miami County Economic Development Authority, said previously a big factor in the company building a solar park in Peru was the enthusiasm and support from county and city officials.
“(IMPA) decided to make more investment in the communities that are working well with them,” she said. “The company wanted me to extend a big thank you (to the city and county) for being so easy to work with.”
In the end, that partnership led IMPA to triple the size of the project.
The company initially proposed last year a $2.1 million park containing 3,900 solar panels and producing 1 megawatt of energy. Officials then doubled the size of the project, and announced in March they would triple the size of the facility.
The biggest reason for the expansion was the availability of land near the city, Alvey said. The project is located on property owned by Peru Utilities that serves as a well field, so it wasn’t open to any development that could impact the wells.
Roger Merriman, general manager of the utility, said the land was an ideal place for a solar park, since it was a low-impact development that wouldn’t create any pollution.
“The property was sitting there doing nothing,” he said. “Nothing was going to be built there, so it’s a perfect place to put solar panels.”
Merriman said the utility is leasing the land to the IMPA, which solely owns and operates the facility.
The solar park is expected to produce around 4,500 megawatts of energy each year to be placed on the city’s local electric distribution system, which in turn is connected to the high-voltage power transmission system, or the grid.
The power then becomes part of all electric generation that is attached to the system that runs throughout the city.
Alvey said the park will operate with a 17-percent capacity factor, which is determined by how much energy the solar panels could produce if exposed to full sunlight for a 24-hour period.
He said solar parks in hotter parts of the country produce more energy, but the amount of electricity manufactured in Peru is pretty good considering its location.
“Indiana is kind of an average spot,” Alvey said. “It’s not the best place, but it isn’t a bad place, either.”