Fort Valley State University is playing a role in bringing clean and renewable energy to residents of middle Georgia. In collaboration with Georgia Power Company, a solar farm of more than 107 acres was built on FVSU’s campus in 2021.
This story is reprinted with permission of Fort Valley State University and first appeared here.
The facility, one of the largest solar operations on a college campus in the United States, consists of more than 27,000 solar panels (400 watts each) that includes a connected sub-station built at a cost of more than $9 million. FVSU did not incur any costs in the construction of the facility.
In addition to the solar farm, the solar farm consists of a model demonstration site dedicated for academic and research use. It will serve as a power source for energy dependent applications at the FVSU Sustainable Research Site.
“This solar project will expand FVSU’s Cooperative Extension Program in Agricultural and Natural Resources (ANR) to include renewable energy,” said Dr. Cedric Ogden, FVSU professor of engineering technology and Cooperative Extension engineer specialist. “It will also provide additional opportunities for FVSU and the Extension program in the areas of sustainability, climate change awareness and alternative energy,” Ogden said. FVSU’s Cooperative Extension Program is supported in part by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through capacity funding.
More than 10.8 megawatts (10.8MW) of power can be generated by the farm to more than 3,000 homes in the middle Georgia area. FVSU will not receive any of this power. This is done with solar panels and the substation converting sunlight to electrical power through the utility power grid. Georgia Power Company will handle the day-to-day operation and management of the larger solar farm with FVSU maintaining control of the solar demonstration site.
The FVSU Extension engineer said solar energy is carbon neutral and does not emit harmful emissions into the atmosphere. It also reduces dependency of finite resources of oil and coal.
In addition to making a major contribution towards the transition to clean energy, FVSU’s Extension Program is expected to reap huge dividends from the solar farm.
“FVSU’s Extension clientele will benefit from the solar farm as it will provide a working model for landowners as well as small and medium growers to follow. It will also provide them insight to alternative land development opportunities,” the FVSU professor said.
According to Ogden, the academic impact of the solar farm will be a sizeable one, especially for students in the College of Agriculture and engineering technology majors.
“They will gain hands-on experience with the solar demonstration site by way of racking panel connection and installation of a model unit. This site will serve as a laboratory for students to adhere to the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Monitoring System. It will also allow students to gain an understanding of how and to what extent solar production is affected by weather conditions, panel orientation and angles,” Ogden said.