CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — BP Oil is sponsoring a joint project with Lightsource bp, a global leader in solar power production, that is expected to benefit Gulf Coast growth ventures in Gregory.
Hundreds of new jobs will be coming to San Patricio County, but this is only a prelude to even more solar farms.
Gulf Coast Ventures Technical Manager Andrew Mitton said the new solar farm being built in Taft will provide a large amount of power to the plastics plant.
"The solar farm will provide up to forty percent of our electrical needs. So if you want to think about it in some different ways, that's getting rid of 130,000 tons of carbon per year," he said.
Peacock Solar Farm will be located near Taft High School and will house some 800,000 solar panels. The 187-million-watt project is also expected to provide $25 million in tax revenue over the first 25 years and will ultimately employ 300 people before being completed next year.
"The average construction wage is about 80,000 dollars. So that can have a great impact," said Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend's Ken Trevino. "So that can have a great impact. Because there's so many construction jobs in the market, they're really not temporary. People move from one construction job to the next. And over the next five years we predict there will be 22 percent growth in San Pat county alone."
San Patricio County Judge David Krebs said that other solar farm construction could be in the planning stages.
"There are numerous industries looking at coming in between the Gregory and Aransas Pass area, 2 or 3 that we're in discussion with," he said.
The farm will generate the same amount of energy that would be needed to power 34,000 homes per year and power not used be sold into the state wide electric power grid.
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