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Construction Begins on 100-acre Solar Farm at Mount St. Mary’s |
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Energy Efficient and Alternative Energy in MD
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 MEA's Generating Clean Horizons program this month broke ground on the state's largest solar array at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg. The project will annually produce 22 thousand megawatt hours of electricity, enough to provide energy for an estimated 1,800 homes.
Maryland Solar Project
The state of Maryland will utilize 16.1 megawatts from the system and 1.3 megawatts of power will go the university. The approximately $60 million solar facility will be constructed, owned, operated, and maintained by Constellation Energy. Renewable electricity produced by the system will be purchased by the state of Maryland and Mount St. Mary’s under long-term power purchase agreements.
The system is expected to produce more than 22,000,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. It utilizes innovative thin-film photovoltaic solar panels situated on approximately 100 acres of university land. The system is expected to be completed by December 2012 and would be the largest solar photovoltaic installation in Maryland. Only two photovoltaic systems currently in operation in the U.S. are larger.
Generating Clean Horizons Program
The Maryland Energy Administration, in partnership with the University System of Maryland and the Department of General Services approved the award of four renewable energy projects under the Generating Clean Horizons program launched in February 2009 to spur the development of large-scale, commercial renewable energy projects like this one. Under the initiative, the state issued requests for proposals for long-term power purchase agreements from renewable power sources delivering clean power to the grid by 2014.
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