Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered Duke Energy has officially switched on its first Indiana PV offering.
The 17MW plant is located at the Naval Support Activity Crane, around 40 miles south of Bloomington.
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When operating at full capacity, the plant can provide electricity for more than 2,700 homes throughout its 69-county service territory.
“This is a landmark development in renewable energy for our company and our customers,” said Melody Birmingham-Byrd, state president, Duke Energy Indiana, in a statement. “It demonstrates our continuing commitment to include renewable energy, such as solar, wind and hydro, in our diversified portfolio of generation sources.”
The plant is part of the Navy’s goal to procure 1GW of renewable energy by the end of 2015.
Duke Energy regulatory hearing
In other news, the solar developer will attend a hearing on 31 May with North Carolina regulators, concerning claims brought by fellow developer O2 EMC that Duke Energy is violating state and federal law by indefinitely delaying to connect three of their PV projects to the grid.
The complaints were first filed in October last year.
“Duke has been a great partner for many years, but in recent months there have been unilateral announcements and actions taken by Duke that have slowed or completely stopped the processing of interconnection requests,” Joel Olsen, CEO of O2 EMC said in November.
Duke retorted at the time that its reasons for the delay concerned maintaining the reliability and integrity of the grid.
North Carolina regulators have instructed O2 EMC to file its complaint by 26 April, with Duke Energy having until 10 May to respond.