The construction of the 100-megawatt sustainable Sunflower Solar in the Mississippi Delta near Ruleville has been completed. The construction of the facility which is Mississippi’s largest with enough electricity to power 16,000 households was developed by Entergy Mississippi.
Attala Steel Industries of Kosciusko provided 2,475 tons of steel for the foundations, while A-1 Kendrick Fence Company of Jackson erected the perimeter fence. Signal Energy handled the engineering, procurement, and construction. Recurrent Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian Solar, developed the Sunflower Solar for Entergy Mississippi.
The facility is located in Sunflower County and links to Entergy’s transmission system at Ruleville. It is a 272,000 PV module single-axis tracking photovoltaic power producer.
Commentary on the Sunflower Solar in Mississippi
“Today marks a watershed moment for Entergy Mississippi, our customers, and our state. Powering communities is at the heart of our business, and this power station will do so in a variety of ways, including providing clean, green power to customers and a hedge against rising natural gas prices, as well as giving industries with renewable energy goals an incentive to locate or expand operations in our state,” said Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi.
“We are happy to have commissioned Mississippi’s largest solar project on behalf of Entergy in a way that has benefitted Mississippi companies and set the door for additional sustainable energy in the state,” said Dr Shawn Qu, chairman and CEO of Canadian Solar.
A part of the state’s greatest renewable energy expansion
Sunflower Solar in Mississippi is the first plant in what will be the state’s greatest renewable energy expansion in history, according to Entergy Corp. As part of the plan dubbed EDGE which stands for Economic Development with Green Energy, the business will replace some ageing natural gas facilities with 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy.
The plan was first announced in 2021 with expectations that by the end of 2030, the corporation will have 11,000 megawatts of renewable energy output.
