OSCEOLA, Ark. — Big River Steel’s new $3 billion mill going up in Osceola will have big electricity needs, and Entergy Arkansas is planning to help meet them with a $327 million solar generation field on 2,100 acres nearby.
The project, aptly named Driver Solar, will drive up to 40% of operations of the new steel plant, about 230 megawatts of Big River II’s 550-megawatt demand, according to Daniel Brown, Big River’s chief operating officer.
Lightsource BP, a subsidiary of BP, developed and acquired permits and financing for the project, which will use about 650,000 solar panels made by First Solar of Tempe, Arizona, and advanced solar trackers from Array Technologies of Albuquerque, New Mexico, according to Mary Grikas of Lightsource BP.
To read more on Big River Steel's new mill, our content partner Arkansas Business has the full article here.