A 12 MW solar farm covering nearly 75 acres at Indianapolis International Airport has been completed.
Costing approximately USD $40 million, the IND Solar Farm consists of more than 44,000 solar panels that will generate around 16 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually.
The electricity produced will be sold by Indianapolis Power & Light and help the utility in its goal of having 10% of its electricity sourced from wind and solar by 2017.
This is only Phase 1 of the Airport’s solar forays.
Phase 2 will be another 12 megawatt installation. The second solar farm will also feed directly into the grid operated by the Indianapolis Power and Light Company through existing surface transmission lines.
When the second phase is completed, Indianapolis International Airport will be the site of the largest airport-based solar farm developments in the USA.
“Development of a second IND-based solar farm is the result of our continued focus on both economic sustainability and environmental commitments,” said Robert Duncan, Executive Director for the Indianapolis Airport Authority (IAA) when the Phase 2 project was announced earlier this year. “The solar farms allow previously undeveloped land to begin generating solar energy as well as significant sources of non-airline revenues for the IAA.”
According to the US Energy Information Administration, Indiana ranked seventh among US states in coal production in 2010, and coal-fired electric power plants provided 83 percent of Indiana’s net electricity generation in 2011. Electricity generation from renewable energy resources in 2010 was 3,699 million kilowatt hours; with the vast majority of the total coming from wind. At that point, the state only accounted for 0.9% of the USA’s renewables based generation.
The state now offers a variety of incentives for the installation of solar power systems; both large and small.
