This coverage is made possible through a partnership with Grist and WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station.
On a stretch of West Georgia highway, in the triangle of land where an exit ramp meets the road, 2,600 solar panels soak up the bright southern sun. The 5-acre site used to be barren and eroding, but now it provides enough power for more than 100 homes. That’s exactly what the team at the Ray C. Anderson Foundation’s sustainable highway project, known as The Ray, was hoping for.
“What it is today is a field of clean, green energy,” said Allie Kelly, the Ray’s executive director. The solar panels stand higher than most, so wildflowers also grow on what was once “wasted public land.”
Someday, she hopes to see solar fields like this lining highways across the country.
The Ray and mapping company ESRI, which specializes in using location data to solve…