LIMA, OH (WLIO) - Plans are progressing on Ohio's largest floating solar field and it's going to be right here in Lima. The city got a $500,000 grant from the Department of Energy to install a 4-acre solar unit that will be on one of the city's reservoirs. The south pond of the twin lakes reservoir at the rear of the water treatment plant will be home to nearly 35 hundred solar panels.
“It will be kind of large but not a huge project. It will produce about 2 megawatts of power,” says Mike Caprella, Lima’s Utilities Director. “It will supply power for the water treatment plant. Whether it's directly to the plant or through AEP by putting it on the grid and getting it back from that.”
Caprella says crews have already been to Lima getting elevations stats and are now in the design phase. They hope to start construction within a year. Lima will be the second floating solar panel on a "water facility" in the state and the largest planned at this time.
