A new solar energy facility will be powering up soon after six months of construction.

This solar farm is expected to produce enough clean, homegrown energy to power 2,900 homes and businesses in the Commonwealth.

Cypress Creek Renewables is in the final stages of its Erie solar project after years of discussions and planning.

It’s a 24-megawatt solar energy-generating facility located in Girard. This project is one of three currently under construction in the state by the developer.

“Solar’s the fastest growing energy source in the United States. Last quarter, more solar was put into the ground than any of the other resources combined.”Sarah Slusser, CEO of Cypress Creek Renewables.

The parcel is 172 acres of land that’s owned by Mark Troyer, the president of Troyer Growers Incorporated.

According to Cypress, the site will produce about $2.36 million in tax revenue to Erie County over the project’s expected 40-year life.

The company operates projects across the United States, so the question is why Erie?

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Not only was the piece of land the ideal location from an electrical grid perspective — good soil and flat — but there was a great need for power.

“There’s a need for power in the whole PJM interconnection, which is an area of the whole middle Atlantic in the United States that needs power,” Slusser added.

“It will be converted to AC power which will then be injected into the low side of the transformer at 630 volts. The transformer will upsize it to 34.5 kV where it will then be injected into the local grid,” said Brandon Griffitts, pre-construction director, Cypress Creek Renewables.

As for the region’s unpredictable extreme weather, Griffitts said the facility is prepared for that as well.

“It has its own control center and there are certain algorithms in there as well as meteorological information that is collected on-site. It will go into a self-protect mode and it will tilt to the east and the west to a certain degree to shed that snow off,” Griffitts explained.

Now that the main stage of construction has been completed, they plan to have the grid up and running producing power within the next few weeks.

“It’s just incredibly energizing to be here today and to see all of this hard work come into fruition and to be able to provide clean, low-cost energy to the people of the community and the greater county,” said Slusser.

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