Solar Tracking Array Goes Up in White Bluff

The state’s first private system of solar tracking panels has been installed at a label-making plant in White Bluff.

On the factory floor of Interstate Packaging, thousands of circuits are housed in entire rooms. The plant, which cranks out thousands of cereal boxes, snuff cans, and underwear packages each hour, uses roughly 50-thousand dollars of power each month.

Outside, three new solar panels are set on pedestals and follow the sun from horizon to horizon each day. They even tilt according to the seasons to maximize production.

Company owner Mike Doochin says the array is producing roughly enough power to run two average households.

“When we actually got into this the other day, we were producing about 10-percent more power…than we though we were going to be producing, so we had to rewire these.”

Despite beating expectations, the 100-thousand dollar system will shave only three-quarters of one-percent off the monthly electricity bill. Doochin says you have to start somewhere.

Tennessee businesses and homeowners have been slowly adopting solar power, mostly static rooftop systems. Tracking systems can produce 30-percent more power per panel, but Gil Milear-Hough [Huff] of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy doesn’t recommend them.

“Cause you have to have the tracking equipment, you have to invest more. It is questionable how much more you get out.”

Solar panels themselves, are virtually maintenance-free for decades, he says. Tracking systems are not. Milear-Hough says folks could buy more solar panels instead.