New Du Quoin Solar Park Ready to Power Up by End of January

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Construction is expected to be completed by month's end--given mild weather-- to build Southern Illinois' first-ever industrial solar park on a two-acre land tract in the city's 90-acre Industrial Park.

All told, the project is valued at upwards of $500,000 and will be a cutting edge incentive to bring or keep industry in the City of Du Quoin.

Jason Hark of a Swansea, Ill.-based engineering company called Mid-America Power Solutions LLC designed the system, which is being constructed by Guaranteed Electric. The ground-mount solar farm contains 340 solar panels approximately 39-by-60 inches capable of generating 198,044kWh of electricity annually, enough to power a super Wal-Mart.

As of Wednesday, more than half the panels were in place. Control panels on the northwest corner of the project can feed the power directly into either the cookie factory, nearby MPP, Inc. or back onto the power grid where the generated electricity can be sold on the open market.

"These are very high efficient inverters," said a contractor working on the project.

It's also a "smart" system. "If the power goes down, the solar panels shut down. When the power comes back on, this system comes back on," he said.

"The technology is new and we don't know how long the panels will last, but they should last a long time--maybe 30 years."

All told, the system can provide nearly a fourth of the energy needed to run either plant--or a future plant.

The mounting system is made by a company called Panel Claw and installation is relatively simple. The mounts are adjustable so that all of the panels will be level and angled for the most benefit--in this case 30 degrees to the sun. The solar park is completely fenced.

Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) Director Warren Ribley is providing the City of Du Quoin a $405,000 grant through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to install the system.

Generating this amount of renewable energy is equivalent to removing 27 cars from the road, decreasing oil consumption by 331 barrels, or planting 3,647 trees.