The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, working with the U.S. Army Garrison – Fort Campbell, Kentucky, today issued a notice of intent to award to BITHENERGY Inc. for a 3.1MW Solar array Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) that will complete the installation’s requirement for a 5MW solar array.
The notice of intent to award does not constitute a formal contract award, but it is a major milestone that brings Fort Campbell closer to a contract award and groundbreaking. In the coming months, Baltimore-based BITHENERGY and the Army project team will work to finalize the technical and legal requirements of the project.
The 27-year PPA for a 3.1 MW array is phase two of the 5MW solar array, which will be the largest in Kentucky. Fort Campbell broke ground in May on phase one, the initial 1.9 MW portion of the array being executed through a 10-year Utility Energy Services Contract (UESC) with Pennyrile Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation and a $3 million Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy grant from the State of Kentucky.
Fort Campbell received an additional $800,000 Department of Energy Federal Energy Management Program AFFECT grant (Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies) that will be awarded to the PPA selected developer at task order award.
This is the first time Huntsville Center’s Energy Division will use two third-party financing contract vehicles together (PPA and UESC) for a renewable energy project.
The original request for proposal closed May 20. Fort Campbell has identified 25 acres of land formerly used as a landfill for the PPA solar photovoltaic array project. The contractor will finance, design, build, operate, own and maintain the renewable energy generation facility on the identified land leased from Fort Campbell. Through the PPA, the Army will purchase the on-site generated renewable electricity for up to 27 years in accordance with the terms and conditions stipulated in the resulting contract.
Project Fact Sheet (PDF)
