The City of Fort Wayne is taking more steps in its efforts to go green. The City Utilities Department is installing floating solar panels on the Water Pollution Control Plant’s wet weather storage ponds.
In a statement, City Utilities officials said “the solar panels are part of a comprehensive strategy, one that research shows millions of dollars in savings for decades to come.”
In that same statement, Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry said in part “this proactive effort to place solar panels on our wet weather ponds will soon generate power to energize critical facilities and store backup electricity to keep necessary services up and running if outages occur.”
Officials said the panels are a part of a multi-faceted project that has been in the works for more than a decade. The panels will become part of a network of energy suppliers that will power the water and sewer plants.
The plan is to reduce the carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions at the city’s water and sewer facilities by at least 20%.
The project is set to be completed with power generation up and running by late next year.