Dayton Power & Light, has 1.1 megawatts of solar photovoltaic (PV) power currently under construction on seven acres near its Yankee substation, about 10 miles south of downtown Dayton in Springboro.

DP&L, founded in 1911 and operating as a subsidiary of DPL Inc., serves about 515,000 retail electric customers in the area from 3,213 megawatts of generation comprised of 78 percent coal and the balance from natural gas and oil. The addition of even 1.1 megawatts of clean, “green” renewable solar energy is a positive sign.

The ground-mounted array, on the site of a soybean field in Washington Township, will consist of about 9,000 panels and will deliver enough power to serve 150 homes and cost an estimated $5 million. In return, it will offset about 700 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking 136 cars off the road or planting 18,230 trees.

The solar field is important not merely for the clean power it will produce when completed, about March of this year, but as a literal “field test” for solar energy, which DP&L will evaluate in determining whether to install sufficient additional solar power to meet Ohio’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS; S.B. 221) for publicly-owned utilities – which calls for 25 percent of generation from renewables, and 0.5 percent of that from solar by 2025 – or to buy said solar energy from generators on the open market via the purchase of renewable energy credits, or RECs.

Unlike many greener states, Ohio’s RPS includes old nuclear plants and “clean coal” technology, which one writer notes is likely a concession to the state’s primary electricity generators AEP, Duke Energy and First Energy, all three of which (like DP&L) provide power from predominately coal-fired generation.

DP&L’s solar field will be built by a consortium of regional energy firms, led by Sharonville-based Ameridian Specialty Services, a full-service general contractor whose new division is aimed at renewable energy technologies, especially solar. Joining Ameridian are Miller Valentine Commercial Construction of Dayton; Square D/Schneider Electric of West Chester; ESI Electric of Dayton; and Inovateus Solar of South Bend, Indiana.

Ameridian will set up the beams and racks on which panels are mounted, and the last step – wiring – will be completed by Square D/Schneider Electric. Ameridian will also install a real-time energy delivery kiosk for residents and solar energy enthusiasts to view.

The system, while large by Ohio standards, is still smaller than Ohio Air National Guard’s expansion project, which will bring the total solar photovoltaic output at the Guard’s Toledo location to 1.2-megwatts.

It is also smaller than the juwi solar 12-megawatt Wyandot Solar facility in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, sold to PSEG by Solar Source LLC under a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with the above-mentioned AEP.