BATESVILLE, Miss — There is nothing but sunshine in the forecast this week in the Mid-South and soon that sunny weather will be put to good use in Panola County.
“When you turn on the lights in Batesville of Panola county, you don’t know where that electricity is coming from but it is coming from right down the street from the power of the Sun.”
Laura Zapata is the CEO of Clearloop a company pushing for green energy here in the Mid-South that has one main goal.
“The power sector is one of the biggest pollutants so can we change that and bring more solar projects to life.”
Clearloop aims to create green energy but also allows companies the opportunity to reduce their carbon footprint.
All 3 states in the Mid-South draw less than 1% of their power from solar energy which makes installations like the ones being built near Batesville even more important.
There are 3 solar projects ongoing in Panola county with 2 expected to go online this Summer with the 3rd expected by the end of the year. Zapata expects enough power to be generated to power 3000 homes.
While creating this energy, the project allows organizations to offset their own carbon footprint.
“Microsoft is trying to bring that project to life to by getting all of the environmental attributes from that and then the third project, something cool for us is Vanderbilt University.”
The Nashville University is using the Panola site as a way to help offset its usage of fossil fuel energies.