Industry figures show NC solar project largest in Eastern US – Charlotte Business Journal

John DowneySenior Staff Writer-Charlotte Business Journal

Figures compiled by the Solar Energy Industry Association show that Strata Solar’s proposed 100-megawatt N.C. solar farm will be more than twice the size of the largest solar-panel project currently operating east of the Mississippi.

The association has figures updated through Feb. 11. Those show that the largest project operating anywhere outside the far-western parts of the country (California, Arizona, Colorado, etc.) is a 75-megawatt solar project in Florida. But it produces electricity by super-heating a fluid piped through a trough of parabolic mirrors that concentrate the sun’s heat.

The Strata farm is proposed as a traditional photo-voltaic project. Those use the solar panels most people picture when they think of solar power.

The largest photo-voltaic project in the eastern United States is a 41-megawatt solar farm operated by the Long Island Power Authority in New York. (That is correcting for the conversion of the project from direct to alternating current.)

No project the size of Strata’s planned installation is under construction in the Eastern states, according to the figures compiled by SEIA.

via Industry figures show NC solar project largest in Eastern US – Charlotte Business Journal.