The City of Bloomfield's journey to energy independence has taken a big step forward, after years of research, evaluation, and planning by many of the top energy professionals around the Midwest, and beyond. Bloomfield, with a population of less than 3,000 people, has installed a massive 1.86-megawatt solar field to generate their own power.

The solar field completed construction at the end of December, and will produce 10% of Bloomfield’s annual energy. This project is the largest tracking solar array in Iowa to date. A tracking solar array, compared to a traditional fixed array, rotates on an axis to follow the sun as it moves during the day. This gathers significantly more solar power.

Bloomfield’s solar project, is part of what city officials have hailed as, “a community effort to become energy independent by 2030.”

The project was a long time coming, after the Bloomfield City Council decided to pursue energy independence in the Fall of 2014, following a study conducted by the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities. The study revealed that small towns could “save big” with efficiency renewables.

To learn more about Bloomfield’s story, be sure to check out the next issue of IAMU Connection magazine, due out in March.