Solar parks add power for Richmond

Sunny summer days helped crews make significant progress constructing Richmond’s eighth solar park so that sunshine next summer will be capable of generating 6.1 megawatts of electricity.

The addition of the solar park along U.S. 40 between Salisbury and Round Barn roads will increase the solar parks’ capacity to 46.88 megawatts during peak sunshine hours. That’s 36% of Richmond Power & Light’s average demand during a day, said RP&L General Manager Tony Foster during the Sept. 4 meeting of RP&L’s board, which is composed of Richmond Common Council members.

The solar parks, which are built by the Indiana Municipal Power Agency, connect to RP&L’s substations and provide electricity directly for RP&L customers. During 2023, customers used more than 59.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity generated by solar parks. That was 6.9% of the overall 858 million kilowatt-hours demanded during the year.

Centerville also has an IMPA solar park that can produce about a megawatt of electricity for the town’s power needs. On its website, IMPA lists 47 active solar parks capable of producing 1,603 megawatts of electricity. 

The solar parks help IMPA reduce its dependence on coal to produce electricity. During 2023, coal generated 60.4% of IMPA’s electricity, nuclear 19.9%, renewables 10.1% and natural gas 9.5%.

In addition to IMPA’s solar parks, 20 RP&L customers produce their own solar electricity. Thirteen of those residential systems produce less than 10 kilowatts each, and seven systems — three residential and four nonresidential — produce more than 10 kilowatts each.

Those producing less than 10 kilowatts are in RP&L’s net metered program. They receive credit at the retail rate on their bills for any excess power they place on RP&L’s system. Foster said the last net metered system to go live was in June 2022.

The systems producing more than 10 kilowatts, including one that became active in July, have purchased power agreements directly with IMPA. They are paid this year 3.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for excess power supplied to the grid. The seventh of those systems became active in July.

Other business

• Board members unanimously approved the fourth-quarter Energy Cost Adjustment increase of $0.000459 per kilowatt hour. The increase raises the ECA rate for residential customers from about a penny and a half per kilowatt-hour to a little more than 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. The ECA, which reconciles fluctuations in what RP&L pays for electricity, had decreased for the third quarter.
• The bid for a new reel trailer to be used by the line department was unanimously awarded to Sauber Manufacturing Co. of Virgil, Illinois, for $22,947. Sauber was the only bidder, and the bid was lower than the budgeted $27,000.
• Foster opened two Wetzel Ford bids for a new pickup truck to be used by the engineering department. Wetzel bid $38,911 for a 2024 Ranger and $44,430 for a 2024 F-150. Those bids were taken under advisement.