2011년 8월 9일 화요일

New Perdue solar farm powers Bridgeville plant

Marginal former cropland now generates electricity

Jim Perdue (left), chairman of Perdue Farms, and Delaware U.S. Sen. Tom Carper walk Monday among the 6,720 solar panels that power Perdue's Bridgeville grain facility and feed mill, whose grain silos can be seen in the background.

BRIDGEVILLE -- Perdue Farms showed off a sprawling new, fully operational solar array on Monday, with seven football fields' worth of panels powering a feed mill and grain facility next door.
Officials with the poultry company and Washington Gas Energy Services, which owns the panels, said that at 6,720 panels, it's currently Delaware's largest solar farm.
It won't enjoy that distinction for long, as the Dover SunPark, a significantly larger solar facility, is expected to be dedicated later this month.
It also is smaller than the 7,300-panel array completed last month by AstraZeneca at its U.S. headquarters campus in Fairfax, which uses rooftop panels to generate 10 percent of the electricity needed to power the complex.
Standard Solar of Rockville, Md., which installed the panels at Perdue's Bridgeville facility, is working on a second, slightly smaller solar array at Perdue headquarters in Salisbury, Md. Those panels are scheduled to be up and working in October.
Together, the two arrays on Perdue land will produce an average of 3,700 megawatt hours of electricity a year -- enough to power 340 typical homes.
"We have four values and one of them is sustainability," said Jim Perdue, the company's chairman. "This is one of our efforts to become more sustainable."
Under sunny skies Monday, the panels were operating at close to peak production, providing as much as 90 percent of the power needed to run the grain facility and feed mill.
But its production is expected to average out at about one-third, given that many days aren't so sunny, especially in the winter.
The field on which the panels sit formerly was used to grow corn and soybeans, said Steve Schwalb, vice president of environmental sustainability for Perdue. It was only marginally productive, and this is a better use, he said.
Washington Gas has a 15-year power-purchase arrangement with Perdue. It cost between $5 million and $6 million to build the array at Perdue's Bridgeville facility, Washington Gas officials said.
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Schwalb said some the excess power generated by the panels on some days can be sold to Delmarva Power, which helps make the arrangement financially feasible.
Delaware natural resources Secretary Collin O'Mara said the state's new laws governing solar power are helping make arrangements like this possible for farming operations.
Not only does it allow the panels' owner to produce 10 percent more power than it needs and sell the rest to Delmarva Power, O'Mara said. The laws also allow solar power from a single array to go to more than one meter owned by the same person or business, he said.
"This represents another potential profit center for agriculture," O'Mara said.
U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., praised the teamwork that made the project possible, between utilities, state and federal government, and the solar company.
"I've never seen anything like this in Delaware," Carper said.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., called it "a great example of the virtuous cycle that is possible" when government and industry work together.
Harry Warren, president of Washington Gas, said the project will help his company meet its state renewable-power purchase requirements. Warren said that as a competitive supplier of energy to Delmarva Power electric delivery customers, his utility, like Delmarva, is required to buy 25 percent renewable power by 2025.

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