Jennah Denney, marketing coordinator for Today's Power Inc., at one of the utility-scale solar arrays the company has built around Arkansas and beyond.
Today’s Power Inc., the Little Rock company specializing in building small utility-scale solar power generation projects for the state’s electric distribution co-ops, has six noteworthy projects on the books for 2019. One will begin in Woodruff County next month as soon as TPI finishes a similar installation in Salem.
The company, which has built commercial arrays for Tyson Foods, Husqvarna and South Arkansas Telephone Co., expects to break ground on Jan. 22 on a solar power plant for Woodruff Electric Cooperative Corp. That’s about the time the company expects to finish the Salem project, for North Arkansas Electric Cooperative.
A wholly owned subsidiary of Arkansas Electric Cooperatives Inc., Today’s Power has five co-op solar projects cleared for next year, and AECI-related cooperatives have begun acquiring land for the installations, according to Jennah Denney, the company’s marketing and public relations coordinator.
“It’s going to be a busy year,” she told Whispers. “All those projects have been approved by their boards and land acquisition is underway.”
She said her company’s recently announced 12-megawatt project for the city of Fayetteville is expected to break ground in the second or third quarter of 2019. In that project, a step toward Fayetteville’s commitment to power all municipal operations with 100 percent clean energy by 2030, is in partnership with Ozarks Electric Cooperative.
It includes solar arrays and battery storage systems at each of Fayetteville’s two major water treatment plants.
Today’s Power will build, operate and maintain the facilities under a 20-year deal for 10 megawatts of generation and 24 megawatts of storage on 87 acres at the Paul R. Noland Wastewater Treatment Facility and the Westside Water Treatment Facility.
The city, which has committed more than $560,000 in initial capital to the project, expects to save $6 million in energy costs over the 20 years, and calculates that the solar power stations will pay for themselves in just a few years.
The wastewater plants are Fayetteville’s largest electricity guzzlers, consuming some 67 percent of all electricity used by the city.
Through solar net metering, the new system will completely power the plants, and Ozarks Electric will use the battery-stored electricity to cut costs for members during peak consumption times like summer.
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