Duke Energy Renewables, a commercial business unit of Duke Energy, has acquired a 20-MW (AC) solar project in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., from Geenex and ET Solar Energy Corp. The Halifax Solar Power Project was placed into service this month. Duke Energy Renewables will own and operate the site.

"ET Solar and Geenex have created a quality solar facility, and we are excited to add it to our more than 60-megawatts of successful operating projects in Eastern North Carolina," said Duke Energy Renewables President Greg Wolf. "We also appreciate and plan to support their community-centric vision for the project."

The project was built on the site of a decommissioned airport in Halifax County, putting idle property into productive use.

"In a unique economic development agreement with the county, we have broken ground on our Solar Center of Excellence, which will provide education about solar power and work in partnership with the schools in the region and Halifax Community College to train solar energy technicians," said Georg Veit, CEO of Geenex.

The project is located in Dominion North Carolina Power's service territory, and the energy generated from the solar site will be sold through a 15-year agreement with the utility. The project will inject an estimated USD$75 million into Halifax County between 2014 and 2029, and it created more than 150 jobs during peak construction, noted Dennis She, ET Solar’s president and CEO.

The system employs 866 AE 3TL string inverters of 23.2KW AC capacity each and has about 100,000 ET Solar and Chint solar modules. It can produce enough electricity to power approximately 3,500 homes.