RICHMOND — The air above the
Richmond 2 solar park remains crystal clear on a sunny April day even as
thousands of solar panels produce electricity.
That's
in stark contrast to the image most associated with energy production: A
large coal-fired plant belching smoke and polluting the air. The
Indiana Municipal Power Agency, a nonprofit, wholesale power provider
with 61 member communities, decided in 2000 it needed to reduce its
dependence on coal.
IMPA, which includes Richmond,
Centerville and Dublin as members, in 2000 set a 20-year goal of
generating 20 percent of its energy by sources other than coal, said Raj
Rao, IMPA's president and CEO, who began his energy career in 1977 at
Richmond Power and Light.
"As of this year, we have
67 percent of the energy coming from coal and 33 percent is coming from
something else," Rao said. "We have decided that by 2030 we need to
have 50 percent dependence on coal and 50 percent coming from some other
resources."
Solar power represents a part of that
non-coal energy. By the end of 2018, IMPA had 20 solar parks statewide
with a generating capacity of 48.2 megawatts. That still lags far behind
the 615 megawatt capacity of its coal facilities, the 410 megawatt
capacity of its natural gas facilities and the 296 megawatt capacity of
purchased wind and nuclear electricity.