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Power to Save: Raceway Hits Major Milestone at Solar Farm

LONG POND – About four years ago Pocono Raceway dedicated a solar farm to generate energy. On Thursday, the raceway in Monroe County showed us exactly how...

LONG POND - About four years ago Pocono Raceway dedicated a solar farm to generate energy.

On Thursday, the raceway in Monroe County showed us exactly how much electricity it has produced and the numbers are pretty impressive.

About 40,000  solar panels sit off in an old parking lot across from the Pocono Raceway.

For the past four years, they have been capturing the suns rays here in the Pocono Mountains. Now raceway officials said they've hit a major milestone.

"15 million kilowatt-hours, it`s an unbelievable number to reach and get to, and pretty impressive if you look at what that equals out to," said Pocono Raceway Owner and CEO Brandon Igdalsky.

That's right 15-million kilowatt-hours of power produced from the sun.

Igdalsky said it's a hard number to wrap your head around, but it's enough to fuel more than 120,000 trips between Philly and New York, or cook 28 million pieces of toast.

"Everybody always says how are you able to do that in the Poconos, and actually it works better here because of the cooler temperatures during the day," said Igdalsky.

If you think 15 million kilowatt-hours of energy is a big number well that's only the beginning, these solar panels are expected to produce 75 million kilowatt-hours of energy in their lifetime.

Online anyone can log onto the raceway's website and keep track of the progress at the track up to the minute stats on how much energy is being cranked out each hour.

Even the lawn-care is green around this green energy as the sheep "mow" the grass.

"It's good for everybody in the community, it's good for the world and we've got to look at alternative energy sources as we move forward," said Igdalsky.

Once the solar panels are about 25 years old, they will have to be replaced, but Igdalsky said the investment is worth it in cost savings for the Raceway and for the return for the environment.

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