The installation would generate enough energy to taking the equivalent of 2,000 cars off the road
(Pic: Solectria Renewables)
Indianapolis International Airport (IAA) is to play host to the largest airport solar installation in North America on 75 acres of land or just under the size of Vatican City.
The renewable energy generated by the IAA solar farm will prevent approximately 10,700 tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the environment each year – the equivalent of removing approximately 2,000 cars from the roads of central Indiana.
The solar farm is expected to generate more than 12.5 million kilowatt hours of electric energy annually – enough to power more than 1,200 average American homes annually – and is scheduled to come online this month.
Shutdown
The US Solar Energy Industry Association has raised concerns that Congress shutdown will have devastating impacts on the country’s solar industry.
The Department of Energy has already issued warnings that a “prolonged lapse in appropriations” could lead to employees being temporarily laid off.
Analysts at IHS Global Insight have calculated that it will knock $300m a day off US economic output (total US nominal GDP, or output, was around $16 trillion last year).
The key issue is how long it lasts. Moody’s Analytics reckons that a two-week shutdown would cut 0.3% off US GDP, while a month-long outage would knock a whole 1.4% off growth.
This would be a huge setback, as the latest market analysis has evidenced the success of the US solar industry.
It has been estimated that the 9.37GW of solar electric capacity installed this year will offset 9,232,122 metric tons of CO2 emissions annually, which is the same as displacing the emissions produced from burning nearly 40,000 railcars worth of coal; removing 1.9 million cars from the road; or displacing the emissions produced from burning the gasoline contained in 121,764 tanker trucks.
The project in Indiana is being developed by inverter manufacturer Solectria Renewables alongside construction company Cenergy Power, and is expecting the project to be finished ahead of schedule.