Carroll County will soon be the home to the largest solar generation facility in Mississippi.
Renewable Energy Solutions (RES) and Cooperative Energy have entered into an agreement where RES will design, develop, install, and operate a 652-acre solar farm at the base of Valley Hill, and Cooperative Energy will purchase the energy for its customers – 11 cooperatives in southern and western Mississippi.
The plant is expected to be operational by 2022. Once it’s completed, the farm will house approximately 363,000 panels.
According to Carroll County Supervisor Jim Neill, the solar farm is expected to power 20,000 homes in Carroll County.
Neill said the companies will not estimate the value of such a development, however, in southern Mississippi a solar farm far smaller than what is proposed in Carroll County cost approximately $100 million to develop.
Solar energy is a clean, environmentally-sound renewable energy source. After the initial investment, maintenance costs are low, and with continued research, technology is improving and so could the cost for residential solar panels. There are current issues with storing energy created from the panels, but again as technology improves those kinds of problems will be remedied.
The United States Department of Energy reported that in early 2011, solar power comprised less than one-tenth of a percentage point of the U.S. electricity supply with an installed capacity of just three gigawatts. As of 2017, solar now supplies more than one percent of U.S. electricity demand with an installed capacity of more than 47 gigawatts. The department of energy has even committed to help get lower costs of solar-generating electricity by 50 percent between 2020 and 2030 in what they call the SunShot Initiative.
It seems Carroll County is now at the cutting edge of a future push toward solar energy.
What’s more, local residents should be able to reap the benefits the solar energy being harvested in their community.
