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Nearly three years after breaking ground, Pennsylvania-based Doral Renewables is celebrating the beginning of commercial operations for its $475 million Mammoth North Solar project in Starke County.
The project, which is the first of a three-phase, $1.5 billion effort, is expected to generate enough clean energy to support 75,000 homes annually.
CEO Nick Cohen said Indiana has proven to be the ideal location for the project, which will be the largest operating solar installation in the state when fully operational.
“Indiana really is the most competitively advantaged location for this kind of business,” Cohen said. “The grid is here. The farm fields are flat, and the communities are very accepting of this new form of farming.”
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Cohen joined Indiana Secretary of Commerce David Rosenberg and various industry leaders and partners on Tuesday to celebrate Mammoth North connecting to the grid.
“Doral Renewable’s Mammoth Solar development is the perfect example of how Hoosiers are collaborating to solve global challenges,” Rosenberg said in written remarks. “Our continued partnership with Doral, the northwest Indiana community and project stakeholders is creating more opportunities for Hoosier businesses and residents alike, and I’m confident the impact of this investment will only continue to grow for years to come.”
One key aspect of the project that Cohen is most proud of is the use of agrivoltaics, which involves the use of livestock to help with vegetation management. Doral Renewables is partnering with local farmer Billy Bope, who is leading the operation.
“The dual-use opportunities presented by Mammoth Solar are a win-win scenario,” Bope said. “We’re able to diversify our farming practices with livestock, which allows us to maintain the vegetation to the level Mammoth North needs. Specifically for my family, Mammoth Solar also allows the next generations of Bopes to stay on our family’s farm.”
Cohen said the use of agrivoltaics is allowing a return of traditional farming to the land being used for the solar panels.
“We have 1,500 sheep grazing and doing the vegetation management. There are a dozen alpaca. There’s a donkey and ducks and turkeys and all kinds of animals. Plus, we’re growing special crops that grow in and around the solar field,” he said. “So, it’s bringing the heritage farming back to the farms. It’s also enabled us to connect better with the community.”
Cohen said having that agrivoltaic component has helped provide reassurance to local residents who were worried about farming going away as a result of the solar project.
He said in 30 years, the solar panels will be removed at the end of their life span, and the farms will go back to the farmers.
“A lot of these farms have been in the family for generations, and some of them have financial pressures because the large-scale farming is out competing them,” he said. “With this, they’re able to get increased income and sustain their farm for the next generation.”
Doral Renewables broke ground on the second phase of the Mammoth Solar project in November 2022. However, Cohen noted that both the second and third phases, known as Mammoth South and Mammoth Central, respectively, are being constructed at the same time in Pulaski County.
Construction on those phases will continue over the next two years, Cohen said.
Overall, the 1.3 gigawatt Mammoth Solar project is expected to provide energy for approximately 250,000 homes in Indiana and Illinois each year. And Cohen said the project will bring more than just energy benfits.
“There’s economic payments that we’ll be making for the next 20 to 30 years in each county, so it’s very economically uplifting for the community. Also, we get reassessed and we pay more in taxes, which reduces taxes for everybody else. So, it really is a benefit for every single resident of the county.”
Cohen credited state and local government entities for making a business-friendly environment in which Doral could build this solar project.
“That’s how you create an opportunity that leads to more jobs and more companies coming to the state for the power. I think the outlook is very good for Indiana.”
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