Solar power coming to Entergy Mississippi
By the end of August, solar power should be part of Entergy Mississippi's electricity-generation repertoire.
The utility broke ground Tuesday on one of three solar projects it plans in Jackson, Senatobia and Brookhaven as part of its $4.5 million Bright Future Plan.
Between now and when they start producing electricity, Entergy will install 3,744 solar panels made at Stion Corp.'s facility in Hattiesburg. The panels will occupy a field adjacent to Entergy's Hinds Generating Facility in Jackson.
It's the first scale solar project in the state, Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley said at the groundbreaking on the site.
"The sunshine is free," he said. "We need to use it."
Once the three sites have operational panels — Brookhaven and Senatobia should be online by the end of 2015, Entergy Mississippi CEO Haley Fisackerly said — they will produce 1,500 kilowatts of electricity, enough to power 175 single-family homes.
Solar will join Entergy's existing fuel mixture of nuclear, natural gas and a small amount of coal.
"We get questions all the time about solar power, and the honest answer is, without a project like this, we just don't know how efficient it will be, how commercial it will be or how feasible it will be," Fisackerly said. "These projects will answer a lot of questions for us and will give our customers access to renewable energy."
The panels are scheduled to arrive at the Jackson site by the middle of April, with construction starting soon after. The panels will feature a single-axis tracking system that will follow the sun as it moves through the day.
The project will include real-time data monitoring that will be available on Entergy's website. Installations in the northern, central and southern parts of the state will allow the utility to understand locational differences, capacity factor, how different weather patterns affect output and irradiance at each location.
"Mississippians like to do things on our own," Presley said. "We like to fix our own cars and grow our own food. Now we want to produce our own energy. This is a giant leap forward."
Entergy's Bright Future Plan will serve as the utility's blueprint for providing electricity to its 442,000 customers across Mississippi. It's designed to improve reliability, modernize the grid, maintain an adequate workforce, stabilize rates and use new technologies as part of Entergy's economic development efforts, the company said.
The PSC approved the plan as part of rate case late last year. "This is a big part of the change taking place within the energy industry the next few years," Central District Public Service Commissioner Lynn Posey said.
Contact Clay Chandler at (601) 961-7264 or cchandler@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @claychand on Twitter.