Five years ago, Chattanooga businessman Barney Danks spent nearly $2 million to develop and erect a pair of 200-kilowatt solar arrays near Tracy City and Rocky Face, Ga., to take advantage of one of TVA’s first solar power purchase programs.
Athough TVA is cutting the premiums it previously paid for solar generation, Danks is still buiding more solar farms in the area. On Wednesday, he showed off a 750-kilowatt solar farm near Rossville, Ga., that cost about $1.5 million to build – and should produce nearly twice as much as his two earlier solar farms that cost even more to construct.
The new 6-acre Rossville solar farm erected on a former cattle farm along Glentanna Street includes a single axis tracker the adjusts the 2,356 solar panels throughout the day to capture maximum energy from the sun. By rotating the pitch of the elevated solar panels Danks expects that each panel will capture about 20 percent more power and in total the new farm should product more than 1.62 million kilowatthours a year.
“The cost of solar continues to go down and, to me, it just makes sense to try to use free fuel, if we can, and not use coal, gas or other fossil fuels that create climate change or take the risks of problems with nuclear power,” said Danks, a retired certified public accountant.
Rossville Solar Farm founder Harold Barny Danks, right, walks with his son, Trey, beneath one row of panels at the six acre property in Rossville. 
Harold Barny Danks stands next to a transformer on the southeast corner of his six acre Solar farm in Rossville. The property is approximately 6-acres with 2,356 320w panels that will power 125 average homes annually.
Trey Danks, 21, the son of founder Barny Danks, helped build the Rossville Solar Farm that will go on line next week in Rossville. Danks said he initially looked at putting solar panels on the roof of his home but quickly decided instead to try to make a business out of the venture by building solar farms and collecting the energy such an array can generate to sell back to TVA.