AMEA Solar Project Largest in Alabama Capital

This past week, officials at the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority unveiled a significant investment in the future of solar power in central Alabama. The project, which consists of 160 solar panels on the east side of Montgomery, Alabama, is a chance to better understand the future production capability and mechanics of solar power in the region. The development was covered in the October 27th edition of the Montgomery Advertiser.

At a cost of $150,000, the solar project becomes the largest solar array in Alabama’s capital city. For now, the solar energy harvested from the panels will help power AMEA headquarters, where it will provide about a third of the facility’s electricity demand. The utility expects the project will take about twenty years to provide a full return on investment in terms of energy savings.

“Clearly, renewable fuel resources are in our future, but the economics have to work,” Fred Clark, president and CEO of the Alabama Municipal Electric Authority, told the Advertiser. “Our role is to provide the lowest-cost (option) possible. Solar’s not there yet in terms of it being a competitive resource, but in the next five to ten years we believe it will be.”

According to the published report, some of the panels face south to gather the maximum amount of energy throughout the day. Other panels will face west to determine maximum solar output from 3 to 5 p.m., the time of day when AMEA’s 350,000 Alabama customers tend to use the most energy. AMEA is the wholesale power provide for 11 public power utilities in Alabama. They serve customers in Alexander City, Dothan, Fairhope, Foley, LaFayette, Lanette, Luverne, Opelika, Piedmont, Sylacauga, and Tuskegee.

“Twenty years is a long time to get an investment back,” Clark said. “Most residential customers, and even commercial customers, couldn’t do that.”

PACE has encouraged the migration of solar power toward larger-scale commercial projects. This past May, we praised Entergy New Orleans for their decision to build a large-scale solar project in the city of New Orleans. Later in the year, in July, we applauded the announcement by Alabama Power Company that it would install as much as 500 megawatts of renewable energy, much of it solar, across the state. More recently, this April, PACE delivered the news that TVA and a private partner would build a 53-megawatt solar project at a naval facility in Millington, Tennessee.