Caddo Parish solar farm ready to power up, thousands of panels and $82M later

The switch is going to be flipped on a 1,000-acre solar farm in north Caddo Parish any day, said D.E. Shaw Renewal Investments’ Executive Director of Development Liz Peyton.

The $82 million project, visible from I-49 near Hosston, is the first utility-scale solar project in Caddo Parish.

Peyton says the 72.5 megawatt Rockin’ R Solar Farm, which will provide roughly enough to power 20,000 homes, is yet another reason for new businesses to be interested in the area.

“When you think about what economies are built on, it’s on communities where you know what the power costs,” Peyton said. “You know what it’s going to cost for your industry to grow. That enables you invest; it enables you to create new jobs.”

“It’s a power sector that embodies all the technology available to us, but also just gets the megawatts on the grid cost effectively,” she said.

Peyton was joined in a field of solar panels just north of Gilliam Tuesday by District 4 PSC Commissioner Foster Campbell, SWEPCO officials and reporters.

DESRI Project Manager Jordan Andrepont says like the sunflowers the area is known for; the solar panels will soon move to follow the sun even on days when the sun is not shining brightly.

“Considering the reflectivity of clouds, we still collect a lot of solar energy during overcast days. You know, if a day like today (sunny) is 1000 watts per meter squared, which is how we measure radiance — we only need 100, 150 watts per meter squared to start generating, you know, a meaningful amount of megawatts put on the grid.”

DESRI, a part of the global investment and technology firm D.E. Shaw Group, owns the “close to 200,000 panels” installed on the leased farmland in north Caddo Parish. All told, DESRI’s roughly 70 solar facilities in 24 states generate some 6 gigawatts. Using DESRI’s numbers, that would be enough power for more than 1.65 million homes.

Campbell says this is the first of what will be more in the region.

“This is a big deal for us, literally a big, real big deal,” said Campbell.  “It’s good for Louisiana, that we’re progressive, that we’re trying to move forward. We’re not stuck in the past.”

“I’m encouraging SWEPCO to be as progressive as possible- wind, solar, natural gas, coal, whatever. Let’s make it and let’s get it down as cheap as we can where people can afford to pay the electric bill.”

“We think it’ll have a positive impact, and we’re excited about the addition to our generation mix as was said earlier, that it’s important to our customers to know that we have a diverse portfolio of generation assets, including solar. So we’re very excited to see this come online and come into commerce,” said William Bradford, SWEPCO’s vice president of external affairs.

How the electricity gets from there to you

Project Manager Jordan Andrepont said the panels generate direct current, DC, which is fed into an inverter to become AC, or alternating current, the type most homes use.  From the inverter, it bounces two more places before making it onto the grid, where it is carried through SWEPCO transmission lines to your home or office.

There are no batteries at the solar farm, so the power is flowing as its being produced.

Will the solar panels degrade over time?

“About a half a percentage point, give or take of degradation per year. So we anticipate that the facility is going to operate with these very solar panels for the course of its life. We don’t typically anticipate that we’re going to repower the facility during its initial useful life, which is about 40 years,” said Peyton.

Will hailstones break the panels?

Yes. Once a weather alert is issued, the panels will be stowed vertically to reduce the surface area. This will help protect them from at least the smaller hailstones.

“A great way to show people in Louisiana we’re on our toes”

Campbell is a solar proponent and is looking to more installations in northwest Louisiana as a way to attract people and jobs. “That’s one of the main reasons that I wanted to be progressive with solar energy, because you can just sit like the proverbial stick in the mud and don’t get it done, or you can help make Louisiana a progressive state that attracts industry.”