Feeds Power Grid with Renewable Energy

Solar farm in Davidson County feeds power grid with renewable energy

A central driveshaft turns to angle banks of photovoltaic solar panels at the best angle to catch the sun's rays Friday, January 28, 2011 at the Golden Crescent solar farm site in southern Davidson County. The solar farm is a joint venture between Duke Energy and SunEdison.

February 7, 2011 - The SunEdison LLC solar farm doesn't "wake up" every day with a rooster or even a playing of the Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun."

Instead, GPS software tells the 63,000 photovoltaic solar panels on mounted solar-tracking towers that it's time to go to work collecting particles of light called photons.

Every day since being switched on in late December, the towers have tilted slowly like sunflowers to do their part to provide energy to about 2,600 homes — most likely in North Carolina, though there's no precise way to determine where the electricity flows once it reaches the power grid.

The towers — which replaced rows of corn and tobacco — are precisely placed, not just for the inspiring, rolling symmetry at the Golden Crescent Farms site off New Jersey Church Road in Linwood.

It's necessary to keep the shadow of one tower from covering another because "shade is like poison to the panels," SunEdison employee Greg Cunningham said.

It's been Cunningham's job the past 18 months to set up the more than 200-acre facility — the largest solar farm in North Carolina — to meet the requirements of Duke Energy Corp. The farm is surrounded by fencing topped with barbed wire to keep out trespassers and vandals.

"The panels try to get what they can first thing in the morning," Cunningham said. "They are their most productive between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., then they try to get what's left of the day." {continued}