Corn and soybean fields in Somerset County formerly ticketed for wind turbines may now become home to one of the largest solar power plants in the eastern United States.
Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp. of Canada has plans to collect up to 150 megawatts of power from arrays scattered across several large plots of land south of Princess Anne. Construction on the first phase of 75 megawatts is tentatively scheduled to begin in May and go online by the end of the year.
The company already has a deal to sell the electricity generated from that first phase to the U.S. General Services Administration.
The agreement was struck by the solar farm’s original developer, Texas-based Pioneer Green Energy, which had previously proposed a wind farm on the land. Algonquin acquired the rights to the project last December for an undisclosed amount of money.
The $178 million project dwarfs any others of its kind in Maryland. The biggest solar farm in the Free State so far produces 20 megawatts of power in Hagerstown, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. It is followed by a 14-megawatt project for Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg.
Maryland’s installed solar capacity rose last year to 321 megawatts, the 12th highest in the nation.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Jeremy Cox over at Delmarva Now