Solar panels float on lake to power Fort Bragg's Camp Mackall

The ribbon was cut Friday morning at Fort Bragg's Camp Mackall on the largest floating solar plant in the Southeast.

Two acres of Big Muddy Lake are covered with a floating array of solar panels, a collaboration between Fort Bragg, Duke Energy and Ameresco, the company who built it. The project is the first of its kind for the military, and it is part of Fort Bragg's overall plan to become more energy efficient and eco-friendly to the land on which soldiers train.

"If you were to build these on training areas, it would take up seven acres," Col. Scott Pence, Fort Bragg garrison commander told WRAL News.

"You would have to fell trees. You're disturbing the eco-system, messing with our woodpecker population."

The water that supports the solar panels keeps them cool, allowing them to produce 60 percent more power than those installed on land or on buildings.

Duke Energy Executive Vice President Brian Savoy said, "For a neighborhood, this facility would fuel 735 homes. Think about how this can be duplicated on many places across North Carolina and the region."

The system creates enough energy to power Camp Mackall and has a two megawatt-hour battery storage system that can provide power even when the sun goes down.

"This is pretty much sized to where we can power all the critical infrastructure of Camp Mackall if for any reason the power grid were to go down," D3 Energy Engineer Stetson Tchividjian told WRAL News.

Fort Bragg is planning more similar installations on other lakes to expand solar power capacity.