dylanh97•7d agoProlific Poster

The local solar farm I scoffed at actually saved our grid last month

I live out in rural Kansas, about 20 miles from Dodge City. When they put up that solar field back in 2020 I laughed. Thought it was a boondoggle. Then last August we had that derecho storm that took out the main power line from the coal plant. Whole town went dark except for the folks near the solar farm. They kept lights on for about 400 houses for 6 hours until crews got the line fixed. I had to eat crow on that one. Has anyone else had an experience where a climate project you doubted proved you completely wrong?

2 comments

2 Comments

gray_roberts7d agoTop Commenter

Man, that's WILD. So did the solar farm have its OWN battery backup to hold that power, or were they still feeding into the main grid somehow?

uma_baker887d ago

Oh man, you've got a small detail wrong there. Most solar farms don't have their own big battery packs. They're designed to feed power straight into the grid. So during the storm, the solar farm was still generating its own power from the sun and sending it out to the nearby houses through a different set of lines that didn't get knocked down. The grid operator just switched those houses over to the solar farm's circuit temporarily. The real trick is that the solar farm kept running because it wasn't connected to the main coal plant line that failed. The panels are spread out and the inverter systems are pretty tough. They can keep working even when the big transmission lines go down, as long as the local distribution lines stay intact. I've seen similar setups in other rural areas. Glad it worked out for your town though. Sometimes you just have to see something with your own eyes before you believe it.