It’s a new day at Fort Liberty, the Army base near Fayetteville once known as Fort Bragg. Its new name is part of a larger effort by the Pentagon to remove references to Confederate officers and symbols from military sites.
An Army statement described the new era: “The name Liberty honors the heroism, sacrifices, and values of the Soldiers, Service Members, Civilians, and Families who live and serve with this installation. We view this as the next chapter in our history and look forward to honoring the stories of our military heroes from every generation and walk of life.”
It’s a significant change because Fort Liberty is the largest Army base by population, with about 99,000 active duty and reserve military personnel, 11,000 civilian employees and roughly 63,000 active-duty family members.
The base is home to the XVlll Airborne Corps, the 82nd Airborne Division and the Army Special Operations Command.
It’s also home to the Department of Defense’s first floating solar farm and the largest floating solar farm in the Southeast.
The 1.1-megawatt system is on Big Muddy Lake at Camp Mackall, a section of Fort Liberty south of Southern Pines.
“If you were to build this on training areas, it would take more than seven acres,” said Col. Scott Pence, Fort Liberty garrison commander. “This system creates enough energy to power all of the critical infrastructure at Camp Mackall.”
The solar farm complex also includes 2 megawatts of battery storage. Two acres of the lake are covered by the system, which provides enough energy to power 735 homes.
The Pentagon is powering a critical area of Fort Liberty with the new system. Troops training to become members of the US Army Special Forces go to Camp Mackall for SERE (survival, evasion, resistance and escape) training. Special Forces Assessment and Special Forces Qualification Courses are also taken at Camp Mackall. There are three airfields at Camp Mackall.
The project is part of the Pentagon’s and Fort Liberty’s plan to become more energy efficient and more eco-friendly to the land on which soldiers train.
The floating farm is a collaboration between Fort Liberty, Duke Energy and Ameresco, a renewable energy company based in Framingham, Massachusetts. It’s been a learning experience for the Pentagon and for power companies.
“We’ve learned a lot from this project,” said Brian Savoy, Duke Energy executive vice-president. “We’re already thinking about how this can be duplicated in many places across North Carolina and the region.”
Fort Liberty is studying where to locate similar installations on other lakes to expand solar power capacity.
