Solar Energy | Pennsylvania Solar Park
A new solar energy plant will be constructed in Nesquehoning, Carbon County, Pennsylvania by Green Energy Capital Partners. The facility will feature solar panels that track the movement of the sun across the sky and will be capable of generating a maximum capacity of 10.6MW of electricity.
The land the power plant will be sited on is 100 acres of undeveloped ground owned by John J. “Sonny” Kovatch, jr. The site will contain more than 900 solar trackers and each tracker will have 48 solar panels. Green Energy will lease the land from Kovatch Partners for 30 years with options for two 10-year extensions.
An existing Solar Tracking System
According to John Kovatch, this is the first of what he hopes will be a series of solar energy farms that he plans for the future.
As for this particular project, the plan is to begin construction in March 2009 with the facility coming into full production a mere 4 months later. At this stage the details over the distribution and purchase of the energy that will be produced by the Pennsylvania Solar Park are still to be finalized. However, Pennsylvania Act 213 requires that local electric utility providers purchase a certain percentage of the generated electricity.
The technology that is planned for this solar energy park is currently in use in Europe with sizable power plants using the tracker system producing electricity in Spain.
The electricity produced by the Pennsylvania Solar Park will be enough to power 1,450 homes and will avoid more than 320,000 tons of carbon emissions over the planned life of the project.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:26 am
[…] Partners to bring the Pennsylvania Solar Park to the area. At 10.6 megawatts, it will avoid some 320,000 tons of carbon emissions over its lifetime. It will be the largest of its kind in Pennsylvania and the second largest in the […]