Construction of the Indianapolis airport solar farm is largely complete and generating enough energy to power about 3,000 homes.
With the completion of Phase 2, the Indianapolis International Airport Solar Farm now has more than 76,000 solar panels and covers 151 acres, or about 20 city blocks.
"It's creating pure, clean energy, and it's all renewable," says Indianapolis Airport Airport Authority Executive Director Mario Rodriguez. "We just have to sit around and let the solar panels absorb the sun."
Indianapolis Power & Light buys the power generated by the farm, then distributes it to its residential and commercial customers.
Alexa Amatulli, a spokewoman for Telamon Corporation, one of the developers of the solar farm, says the Indianapolis airport has the benefit of geography-lots of open space that just can't be utilized any other way.
"The airport just has quite a bit of land, they just can't use for anything else due to airline restrictions," she explains.
Phase 2 was expected to be completed last summer but was delayed because project developers wanted to take advantage of new technology that allows the panels to track the sun as it moves across the sky.
The solar farm is one of only five other airport solar farms in the country and the largest airport solar farm in North America.