Ozarks Electric Cooperative's five-acre Ozarks Natural Energy O.N.E. Facility located along busy Highway 412 contains more than 4,000 stationary solar voltaic panels designed to generate 2 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy annually — enough to power as many as 200 households
Or did generate. The facility is scheduled to be demolished.
The O.N.E. Facility was installed by Today's Power, Inc. or TPI, a wholly owned subsidiary of Little Rock-based Arkansas Electric Cooperatives, Inc., of which Ozarks Electric Cooperative is a member.
AEC's media team declined an onsite interview, deferring to Today's Power media team, which emailed a short statement with few details, although revealing the array will be replaced.
So Ozarks at Large queried Frank Kelly, Chairman of the nonprofit Arkansas Renewable Energy Association headquartered in Little Rock, who said he was unaware of the planned demolition.
"And as far as I know this is certainly the first and only utility scale system that's being decommissioned in Arkansas," Kelly said.
Premium manufactured solar panels, referred to as Tier 1 panels, he said, typically last from 30 to 50 years, able to weather all sorts of conditions. He speculates the panels installed a decade ago in the Ozarks Electric O.N.E. Facility may have been substandard.
"Today's power signed an exclusive marketing contract with the Minnesota firm called tenKsolar," Kelly said. "That firm ceased operations in 2017 and due to the unique characteristics of the tenKsolar system it was probably determined to just replace the equipment rather than rely on a patchwork solution to keep it going."
The statement from Today's Power did broadly cite routine scheduled replacement of systems to "ensure that customers were receiving the solar performance they had contracted for."
As for the fate of thousands of decommissioned solar panels, brackets and inverters, the company stated it hires vendors based on cost performance and impact on the environment to dispose of, recycle and recover/reuse materials. TPI, however, did not name the vendor in charge.
This style of solar panel has parts that can be recycled, Kelly said. The glass can be salvaged, crushed and repurposed and metals can be recovered.
"The solar panel frames and railings are made of aluminum that is easily recycled," he said. "The inverters can be refurbished or turned into E-waste. But because of the unique integrated design of the tenKsolar system, it's not going to be feasible to use any of the racking systems for a new type of solar array, because most utility scale arrays today are leaning towards tracking devices," which follow the sun throughout the day.
Proprietary tenKsolar systems were first installed in the U.S. in 2010, according to historical records. The O.N.E. array on Hwy 412, east of Springdale, configured in repeating south/north wave patterns, was installed several years before the Minnesota-based company terminated operations in 2017. The reported cause: Sales loss and rising warranty/repair claims caused by failing inverters. Kelly said Today's Power is not alone in dealing with an obsolete tenKsolar system, marketed across the South.
Through the years, the U.S. solar manufacturing industry continues to innovate to meet demand, as well as to learn from mistakes, he said.
"Today's solar panels are much larger and more efficient in converting light to energy," he said. "Early solar panels were rated in the 100 to 200 watt size. Today the range is from 385 watts to over 400 watts per panel. In the early days one person could pick up one panel and put it in place. Today the larger panels certainly takes two people to manage. They've become a lot more efficient and somewhat larger and heavier over the years."
The mission of the Arkansas Renewable Energy Association is to encourage energy independence and environmental sustainability, sourcing solar, wind, hydro and biomass as well as geothermal. Members consist mainly of residential solar system owners and professional solar installers, Kelly said.
He also said solar deployment in Arkansas has been soaring.
"At the end of 2023, there were approximately 1.35 gigawatts of solar installed in the state."
With an additional gigawatt projected by the end of this year. Just one gigawatt of produced solar energy can power more than three-quarters of a million homes annually. Over 137 gigawatts of solar photovoltaic power were produced nationwide in 2023. Arkansas, Kelly said, ranks 27th for installed solar capacity, explaining the four main types.
"There's residential, which is your roof top stuff, and yard or farmland arrays," he said. "Then commercial arrays — for example Riceland Foods, Aerodyne and Bank of the Ozarks — which are installed and privately owned under power purchase agreements with the operator. And then you've got community solar which really didn't take off. I personally was involved in what I believe to be the only one that was ever launched in Arkansas. And then of course there's the utility scale installations which dwarf all other installations combined," as electric utilities across the nation slowly transition from carbon-polluting coal and natural gas power generating plants."
Kelly also said most domestic rooftop or yard solar installations today are registered grid-tied systems tethered to local utility power transmission poles, compared to off-grid on-site battery storage solar systems. And until recently domestic and commercial grid-tied solar producers across Arkansas received a retail 1:1 net-metering credit from power companies for excess produced energy transmitted to and "banked" on regional power grids. Net metering worked to greatly incentivize solar installation across the state, Kelly said.
That is until Sept. 30 of this year, when Arkansas Act 278 of 2023 went into effect, replacing retail net metering rates with greatly reduced wholesale net billing rates for all new hookups. The new law, in effect, discourages "banking" of excess solar energy on grids for later consumption, for example, on cloudy cold days. Kelly said the change will likely result in more new off-grid battery storage system installations.
"That's actually what the future is looking like going forward because of the policy changes in Arkansas," he said. "Off grid systems don't have to get registered, they don't have to report anything, they're certainly under the radar and nearly impossible to track."
Arkansas energy utilities reportedly pressed for the new law, claiming net metering strains electric grids and that grid-tied solar producers ought to share the cost of transmission grid use and maintenance. Solar advocates disagree saying that net-metered solar power enables utilities to better manage peak electricity demand loads.
Frank Kelly advises households and businesses planning to convert to either type of solar system under the new law to shop carefully.
"The numbers keep growing where out-of-state installers are doing inferior work or use low quality modules," he said. "And so my recommendation is to search out an Arkansas-based company with a strong list of referrals."
In a statement referencing the pending removal of the obsolete O.N.E. solar facility in east Springdale, Today's Power stated it remains "dedicated to providing energy solutions to improve efficiency and reliability."
