Lightsource BP has brought online a new 188-megawatt solar farm in New Carlisle, just outside of Northwest Indiana.
The solar company, a spinoff of the energy giant BP that's long been a major employer on the Calumet Region's industrialized lakefront, opened the Honeysuckle Solar farm in St. Joseph County, just past the LaPorte County border.
Lightsource BP said it built Honeysuckle Solar with 85% local labor, including workers from IBEW Local 153, IUOE Local 150 and LiUNA Local 645.
“With our project partners, we are supporting the rapidly growing U.S. solar manufacturing sector, local unions, and investing in rural America,” said Emilie Wangerman, chief operating officer of Lightsource BP USA. “Honeysuckle Solar showcases these and other quantifiable benefits Americans are deriving from the Inflation Reduction Act.”
Lightsource BP signed an agreement with Google to supply renewable energy from Honeysuckle Solar to its $2 billion data center in Fort Wayne.
“We have an ambitious goal to operate every Google campus on clean electricity every hour of every day by 2030, which will include our Fort Wayne data center once it comes online,” said Amanda Peterson Corio, Google’s Global Head of Data Center Energy. “We look forward to working with Lightsource BP."
The new solar farm used American-made materials, including steel from Nucor, solar panels from First Solar and smart solar trackers from Array Technologies.
It's expected it will generate $30 million in local tax revenue over the life of the project.
“Over the last couple of years, the desire by companies to have access to renewable energy is a must as the companies consider investing in the region,” said Bill Schalliol, executive director of economic development for St. Joseph County. “The ability to have a project like Honeysuckle Solar proximate to their development site is a huge win and a major attraction piece as we sell a hub of enterprise in St. Joseph County called the Indiana Enterprise Center. We have had over $14 billion of new project investment announced this year, and access to a project like Honeysuckle that is generating local clean energy onto our grid is a major factor in that investment.”
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