To achieve its climate goals, the city helped finance the largest solar farm east of the Mississippi River.
  • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
    1·
    16 hours ago

    How does a city just, determine that? Do municipal buildings just have some sort of option to choose where their electricity comes from?

    Or do they all have enough of their own solar panels that they are able to power themselves? Which seems sort of impossible. I don’t see how they can determine that.

    • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
      2·
      4 hours ago

      Swift Current began construction on the 3,800-acre, 593-megawatt solar farm in central Illinois as part of the same five-year, $422 million agreement. Straddling two counties in central Illinois, the Double Black Diamond Solar project is now the largest solar installation east of the Mississippi River. It can produce enough electricity to power more than 100,000 homes, according to Swift Current’s vice president of origination, Caroline Mann.

      Chicago alone has agreed to purchase approximately half the installation’s total output, which will cover about 70 percent of its municipal buildings’ electricity needs. City officials plan to cover the remaining 30 percent through the purchase of renewable energy credits.