Mississippi breaks ground on its largest solar plant at 52 MW

Solar is coming to the U.S. Deep South in a big way. After Southern Company changed its tune under regulatory pressure in Georgia several years back and accepted the benefits of large-scale solar in its service area, the company’s utility subsidiaries have contracted to buy power from a string of PV projects.

This first took place in Georgia, but over the last year it has spread to Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. As the latest development, today Southern subsidiary Mississippi Power and developer Origis Energy held a ceremony for the groundbreaking of a 52 MW solar PV project in Lamar County, near Hattiesburg in the southern part of the state.

The plant will comprise 215,000 multicrystalline PV modules covering an area of 2.4 square kilometers. Origis energy intends to complete the project in the first quarter of 2017 and will sell the electricity generated to Mississippi Power under a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA).