Officials from the Acquisition Environmental and Industrial Facilities Division at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, along with NRG Solar Oasis LLC representatives, signed the lease in February 2015 at no cost to the Air Force.
NRG has since completed installation of approximately 98,000 photovoltaic solar panels on 180 acres adjoining Air Force Plant 42. One hundred sixty acres of the project site are on Air Force owned property.
A photovoltaic system is a method of converting solar energy into electricity using semiconducting materials. The solar plant will provide 20 Megawatts of electricity, making it among the largest single solar projects undertaken on Air Force property.
Twenty Megawatts is the amount of electricity required to power approximately 3,280 homes. The project will avoid 41,000 tons of carbon emissions, equivalent to taking 8,600 cars off the road.
The Acquisition Environmental and Industrial Facilities Division is part of AFLCMC’s Agile Combat Support Directorate, while the company is a subsidiary of NRG Energy, a New Jersey- and Texas-based Fortune 500 power generating firm.
The agreement provides AFLCMC lease revenues over the next 20 years in exchange for NRG’s rights to install solar panels on Plant 42 land and sell the generated electrical energy to public utilities in southern California. The agreement has two additional five-year options.
Plant 42 is a U.S. government aircraft manufacturing plant. It supports NASA operations and is home to several large contractors, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing.
The Air Force property used for the solar project previously contained an Air Force firing range and a sewage treatment plant. The property was environmentally remediated by the Air Force before development of the solar project.
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