Work has begun on the U. of I.’s first solar farm, which by the end of the year is expected to be online and on its way to generating 2 percent of the campus’s annual electricity usage.
Located on a 20.8-acre tract near the intersection of Windsor Road and First Street in Champaign, the farm is expected to generate 5.86 megawatts of power and contribute up to 7.86 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually to the campus power system.
The solar farm project was approved by the U. of I. Board of Trustees in 2012.
Phoenix Solar South Farms LLC, the project partner, will lease the property from the university for $1 annually, construct and run the system, then sell the power it generates exclusively to the U. of I. at an approximate annual cost of $1.5 million for the first 10 years. The total cost of the project is $15.5 million. The difference between the higher solar farm rate and the market electrical rate will be paid with $1.05 million from the Student Sustainability Committee and $4.25 million from the Campus Utilities Budget.
After 10 years, the university takes ownership of the solar farm, which could keep producing low-cost power for the campus for as many as three more decades, though at a decreasing rate because of standard solar panel degradation rates.
Phoenix Solar’s Joe Borkowski said his company has spent the last three years working to meet state rules and regulations governing the project. He said company officials are eager to start construction.
“It’s been a long process, but we’ve gotten through all of the challenges,” Borkowski said. “We’re very excited to work with the U. of I. and are eager to put (the solar farm components) in the ground. We can’t wait to get started.”
The company started site work this week, which includes clearing away vegetation, and grading and surveying. Once the site is cleared, he said, surveying work could begin by the end of August.
After that, it’s a matter of adding the helical supports that will hold panels containing around 18,000 individual crystalline solar modules, and adding the infrastructure to connect them to the campus power grid.
“We expect it to be substantially completed by Thanksgiving if all goes according to plans,” he said. “That’s when you’ll start really seeing things on the ground.”
The array’s panels will be set on a 20-degree fixed tilt facing due south. The solar equipment will stand around six-feet high, with the low side of each panel about three feet off the ground. He said snow that falls on the panels will melt off quickly.
Morgan Johnston, the associate director of Facilities and Services and its director of sustainability, said the solar farm will be one of the largest university arrays in the nation, further enhancing the university’s reputation as an environmental leader.
“This is electricity that’s created on the campus grid and it stays on the campus grid,” she said. “It’s just one more piece in our diverse power production portfolio.”
That piece will prove to be valuable, as the university is in the midst of updating its five-year iCAP plan for meeting the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, signed by Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise in 2008. Institutions making the commitment have vowed to reduce their campus carbon emissions to net-zero as soon as possible.
Under the agreement with Phoenix Solar, the university will own any Renewable Energy Certificates associated with the solar power produced. The university also will retain the certificates of solar-power projects at the Business Instructional Facility and the new Electrical and Computer Engineering Building. Those projects will be used for research and teaching.
Johnston said the university already has been recognized with the Big Ten Conference, through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for efforts to increase the use of renewable energy.
“We’ve been doing a lot of things right and we keep pushing toward meeting our iCAP goals a step at a time,” she said. “We’ve come a very long way in a very short period.”
She said Facilities and Services planners already are considering future solar sites and are working with students to conduct an inventory of campus buildings to determine the best candidates.