Being that I live in Southern Maryland, all my electricity comes from SMECO, the Southern Maryland Electric Co-Operative. Recently they started, and are nearly done with a new solar plant in Hughsville, right along 235 near the Harley store and across from Randy's Ribs. The impetus for this was the need to have at least .1% of its energy from solar sources to retain a license in the state of maryland, and this plant will now generate 5.5MW, or 0.2% of the total energy produced. This means that the entire plant was driven by state requirements, ie policy.
The land in use was an old tobacco farm that has since been given up to feed corn production, and has been poorly maintained, being far from any local water sources or active watering, but receiving a lot of sun. My source for this is solely that i used to drive by this field every day on my way to work for 2 years before moving closer to my office, so its recent data. But in truth this field was basically wasted, and in a great location for a solar plant, so much that I've commented before to people that it would be a good spot due to the orbit of the earth around the sun coupled with the onshore flow(due to location relative to the ocean) generating clear skies in the summer, and here the summer sun is intense.
Another point would be how this will help support the local grid during the summer months, but I'll need to do a thorough analysis of the main power line routing to make this conclusion. This thought is drawn from the explosive growth in the California, MD area and the main trunk lines not coming across from the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear plant, but from DC down Rte 4 and 5 and how the summer months now require a lot of AC.
In summary, looks like SMECO came to the same conclusion and threw a solid support plant in place to mitigate both the policy concerns as well as supporting the explosive growth in Southern Maryland, while also taking ill used farmland and making it useful. Great Job!
The land in use was an old tobacco farm that has since been given up to feed corn production, and has been poorly maintained, being far from any local water sources or active watering, but receiving a lot of sun. My source for this is solely that i used to drive by this field every day on my way to work for 2 years before moving closer to my office, so its recent data. But in truth this field was basically wasted, and in a great location for a solar plant, so much that I've commented before to people that it would be a good spot due to the orbit of the earth around the sun coupled with the onshore flow(due to location relative to the ocean) generating clear skies in the summer, and here the summer sun is intense.
Another point would be how this will help support the local grid during the summer months, but I'll need to do a thorough analysis of the main power line routing to make this conclusion. This thought is drawn from the explosive growth in the California, MD area and the main trunk lines not coming across from the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear plant, but from DC down Rte 4 and 5 and how the summer months now require a lot of AC.
In summary, looks like SMECO came to the same conclusion and threw a solid support plant in place to mitigate both the policy concerns as well as supporting the explosive growth in Southern Maryland, while also taking ill used farmland and making it useful. Great Job!
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