The university’s Solar Farm resumed full electricity production Jan. 25 after repairs to the site’s three inverters were completed. Inverters change direct current to alternating current to prepare energy for delivery to the campus electrical grid. The installation went offline Oct. 29 after a malfunction of the array’s electrical system.
Under a 10-year power purchase agreement with Phoenix Solar South Farms LLC, the company is responsible for the operation and maintenance expenses for the array until December 2025. Because the campus pays only for the energy the system produces, there was no expense to the university while the farm was offline.
Since December 2015, the farm has produced more than 14,100 megawatt hours of renewable electricity, or enough energy to power approximately 1,300 typical U.S. homes. The farm’s annual generation represents nearly 2 percent of the anticipated campus electrical demand.
The Solar Farm’s current and historical energy production information is available at http://go.illinois.edu/solar.
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