After a slow start, solar power in Mississippi is beginning to become a larger part of the state’s electric generation capacity.
There are eight solar projects, either having been approved by the state Public Service Commission or in the process of approval, that could add up to more than 806 megawatts of total capacity if all the projects are realized.
Renewables still represent only a small fraction of the state’s generation capacity. According to data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources in November was 154,000 megawatts per hour, which is only slightly more than the output of Grand Gulf Nuclear Power Station (1,443 megawatts, the nation’s largest in terms of generation capacity). Renewables were the state’s third largest generation source as a percent of the state’s generation capacity (3.88 percent, up from 2.91 percent in 2000)
According to EIA data, natural gas fuels 88.34 percent of the state’s generation capacity. Second is coal (4.1 percent, down from 24.5 percent in 2000), with nuclear fourth (3.67 percent) from the state’s lone nuclear plant at Grand Gulf.
If all eight projects reach fruition, more than 20 percent of the state’s electric generation capacity could be sourced from solar power.
One of the state’s investor-owned utilities, Entergy Mississippi, already has three small pilot solar facilities operational in Lincoln, Hinds and DeSoto counties.
Entergy received approval in April 2020 from the commission for a 100 megawatt solar farm on 1,000 acres in the Mississippi Delta’s Sunflower County that is scheduled to be operational in the first quarter of 2022.
Entergy spokesperson Mara Hartmann told the Northside Sun that construction on the Sunflower County facility will begin in March. She also said the success of the three initial projects, designed to test how different types of arrays and panels in different geographical areas, led the company to build a larger facility.
The state’s other investor-owned utility, Mississippi Power, has four power purchase agreements with solar developers statewide for a total of 155 megawatts. The state’s Southern Company subsidiary filed an application in September 2020 to build a 1.285 megawatt solar facility in Leake County near Walnut Grove that would also include a 5.14 megawatt battery storage facility.
One of the new facilities that could be approved by the state Public Service Commission is a 175 megawatt solar facility, known as the Pearl River Solar Park, that would be the largest in the state in terms of acreage. The facility will require an initial investment of $235 million and it will be owned by EDP Renewables North America, an energy firm based in Houston. According to testimony, construction will begin in 2022 and commercial operation will occur the following year.
The facility will be built on 1,760 acres in northwest Scott County just across the line from Rankin County.
According to EDP’s filings with the PSC in December 2020, the electricity customer for the solar farm has yet to be determined, but the company is in discussions with potential customers.
Also in December 2020, MS Solar 5 LLC filed an application with the PSC for a 200 megawatt solar facility along with a 50 megawatt battery storage unit in Lowndes County that will require a $200 million initial investment. MS Solar 5 already has a power purchase agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority. Origis Energy USA, which owns the proposed facility, won a competition to supply renewable generation to the TVA and construction is scheduled to start this June.
In May 2020, Cane Creek Solar LLC filed an application to build a 78.5 megawatt facility in Clarke County that will require an initial investment of $80 million. Like The Pearl River Solar Park, the off-taking utility has yet to be named.
That same month, Moonshot Solar LLC filed an application with the commission to build a similar capacity (78.5 megawatts) facility in Hancock County. Like the previous two facilities mentioned, the company is looking for a customer for the electricity and it will also require an $80 million investment.
In 2019, Delta’s Edge Solar filed an application to build a 100-megawatt solar generation facility in Carroll County, which would require an investment of $109 million. The electricity generated there will be sold to the state’s largest non-profit electric cooperative, Cooperative Energy (which provides power to 11 member power associations that serve 55 of the state’s 82 counties) with a 15-year agreement.
The facility was approved after a public hearing in January 2020. According to a story in the Greenwood Commonwealth, the planned facility was acquired by Cubico Buffalo Holdings and is supposed to enter commercial operation by November 2022.
Silicon Ranch filed an application in January 2019 to build a 73 megawatt solar facility, along with another 5 megawatt facility to serve Naval Air Station Meridian, the U.S. Navy’s largest installation in Mississippi.
