Ever since Arkansas passed the Solar Access Act in 2019, Entegrity Energy has been installing all kinds of solar arrays for municipalities in the state – from schools to wastewater treatment plants. On the debut episode of EPIC Projects, sponsored by OMCO Solar, Chris Ladner, founding partner of Entegrity Energy, walks us through key nuances of mid-market solar in Arkansas.
We cover quite a bit of ground in 12 mins. Topics we discuss:
- Public vs. private clients
- Co-locating an array
- Managing sheep on site
- Keys to a wastewater treatment project
We also get into the ground conditions in Arkansas:
“I went to college in the Midwest and I’m a little jealous of the opportunities they have. We have really varied conditions depending on where you are in the state,” Ladner says. “If you bisected our state from the northeast to the southwest, the bottom half of the triangle is more of that delta loamy, which is great, but they are prone to a bit more water retention and we have embed depths that need to be deeper to make sure we meet load requirements. But the minute you get into the top half, you get into the Ozarks, and we have a lot of rock we have to deal with.”
We take a look at the following projects for procurement and design decisions:
Cedar Ridge Schools & Midland School Districts
Prairie Grove Wastewater Treatment
University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana
That Hope-Texarkana project in particular is a highlight for the solar education lab that is being built right along with the array.
“The college has a power technologies program, and we have now added NABCEP certification,” Ladner tells us. “We built a workforce development center that houses some different programs, and we did some energy efficiency. So it was great from a comprehensive standpoint, but what we really love about it is us and our partners got engaged on helping with the solar lab so we could start developing the next crop of solar installers.”
Skip to that part of the conversation to hear more:
Tags: EPIC Projects, OMCO solar
