Fayetteville “flips switch” on new solar array
Left to Right: Sarah Moore, City of Fayetteville Council Member; Peter Nierengarten, City of Fayetteville Environmental Director and Energy Manager and Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation Board Chair; City of Fayetteville Mayor Molly Rawn; Chris McNamara, City of Fayetteville Sustainability Project Manager; Flint Richter, Business Development Executive for Entegrity Energy Partners. Photo courtesy of City of Fayetteville.
In case you missed it, something “electrifyingly cool” happened in Fayetteville, Arkansas, this week.
On Monday, April 27, the City of Fayetteville officially activated its new solar array in a "Flip the Switch" ceremony at City Hall as part of its Earth Week festivities. Thanks to this 25-year Solar Services Agreement, Fayetteville will now run on approximately 92–93% clean energy. The new array near Nashville, Arkansas, will offset electricity for more than two dozen city facilities, reducing our dependence on the grid and saving an estimated $7 million over the life of the contract.
“Today’s milestone is more than just flipping a switch on another solar array. It’s a clear signal of what’s possible when a community sets bold goals and commits to them with persistence, creativity, and collaboration,” Fayetteville Environmental Director and Energy Manager Peter Nierengarten stated in his remarks. “We didn’t arrive at 93% clean energy by accident—we arrived here because Fayetteville believes in being a leader, because we choose long‑term resilience over short‑term convenience, and because we refuse to wait for others to build the future we know is necessary.”
In 2018, the Fayetteville City Council first adopted the goal of transitioning all City buildings to 100% Clean Energy by 2030 with the Adoption of the City’s first Energy Action Plan. And in July 2024, the City Council re-affirmed that goal by adopting the City’s first Climate Action Plan.
The solar project is a 3.77 MW ground mounted solar array located in Southwestern Electric Power Company territory near Nashville in southwest Arkansas The solar project uses aggregate net metering to offset electricity consumption at the City’s buildings and facilities in Fayetteville, according to Nierengarten. Some of those facilities include City Hall and our other downtown campus buildings; Happy Hollow Campus, the new Police Headquarters; seven of the city’s fire stations; Drake Field Airport, and several parks. Entegrity Energy Partners (project developer), SWEPCO and the City’s Accounting Team were also instrumental in completing the project.
With the addition of this newest array, the City of Fayetteville’s facilities and lands will have more than 14 MW of solar, which will generate 30,000 MWh per year of clean electricity and will offset 425,000 MT of CO2 emissions over 25 years.
“You would need to ride a bicycle 1.2 BILLION (with a B) miles to offset this much carbon – this is also the equivalent to ½ a million people participating in curbside recycling,” Nierengarten explained. “This new solar will also prevent the burning of 16,000 Tons of coal per year! Not only are these solar projects helping to protect our environment, but they also make good business sense for the City. Net metering and locked in solar pricing for the next 25 years protects the City from fluctuating and rapidly escalating electricity prices! We conservatively estimate that the City’s investments in clean solar electricity generation will save the City $700,000 per year in reduced utility bill expenditures.”