FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. – The Fort Campbell Department of Public Works will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony for the installation’s Solar Array Project, Monday, Sept. 21 at 10 a.m. at the solar array site, near the intersection of Screaming Eagle Blvd. and Market Garden Rd.
The ceremony signifies the completion of phase one of the project, which will produce 1.9 megawatts of solar power. When fully completed, the two-phased ground-mounted solar panel system will produce five megawatts of solar energy, which is enough to power an equivalent of 463 homes.
This will provide more than 10 percent of Fort Campbell’s power requirements in the form of renewable energy. The Fort Campbell project is a united effort through a partnership with the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of Energy, Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative and the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet.
Preparation to install a solar array began in 2012 when Fort Campbell established a renewable energy plan, based on directives set forth in the American Renewable Energy Act, which requires 25 percent of energy consumed by federal installations to be produced by renewable means by 2025.
A $3.1 million grant awarded by the state of Kentucky to Fort Campbell and the Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation in December 2012 pushed the project forward. Fort Campbell received an additional $800,000 grant through the Department of Energy’s Federal Emergency Management Program to fund Phase Two of the project.
This solar array is one of many similar renewable energy projects at other military installations, including a $75 million solar panel farm being constructed at Fort Benning, Ga.