The 5.4 MW Lake County Solar project consists of two 2.7 MW systems in the towns of East Chicago and Griffith, Indiana. The systems are located on industrial sites owned by Buckeye Partners, LP (NYSE: BPL).

The sites are on or adjacent to existing operations of Buckeye Partners, so special considerations were taken during the system design to address security, safety, and protection of the existing facilities. Specifically, the PV systems were designed with concrete ballasts, placed above the soil surface, to eliminate the embedment of steel posts. The sites were further constrained by existing wetlands, adjacent railroads, waterways, facilities, and facility operations. By adding the
solar system, clean and emissions-free energy is generated on the otherwise unused land.

Lake County Solar is owned by D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments and managed by Bright Plain Renewable Energy. The project was developed by Community Energy and built by groSolar.

“We have worked with groSolar on multiple projects and continuously find them to be reliable and consistent with their high quality of work. We chose groSolar’s team because of their expertise in managing large-scale construction and solar PV projects on sensitive sites. Their responsive and proactive project management approach was vital to this project and simultaneously managing the two Lake County sites,” said William Lee, President of Bright Plain Renewable Energy.

The East Chicago and Griffith sites combined will generate approximately 7,000,000 kW hours of energy annually, which is equivalent to powering over 800 homes per year. The generated energy will be supplied into the NIPSCO (Northern Indiana Public Service Company) utility grid for the use of the local residents and businesses.