Mississippi broadband future: Can new funds transform digital deserts? clarionledger.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from clarionledger.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
HOUSTON Natchez Trace EPA General Manager Shawn Edmondson said this week the electrical cooperative will receive a $10.3 million federal subsidy to help provide its service area in Webster and Chickasaw Counties with broadband internet access.
Efforts to reach that goal are bearing fruit; the EPA has recently provided internet service about 150 customers, and that number is growing every day, Edmondson said.
The subsidy to NT Spark is designed to help underwrite the estimated $42 million cost of broadband infrastructure construction in underserved parts of the Natchez Trace service area.
The subsidy is part of $91 million approved for use by nine northeast Mississippi electric power companies for internet access, according to information from Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley.
The Mississippi Public Service on Tuesday approved a solar and battery storage facility in Walnut Grove, in Leake County.
The small utility-scale solar facility, which will be owned and operated by Mississippi Power Co., will produce 1.285 megawatts of clean, carbon free solar energy.
It will also have battery storage capacity of 5.14 megawatt-hours of electricity for those same customers and could support a future micro grid for the Walnut Grove area which would protect the town from outages on the larger grid. The project represents a total investment of $7.8 million in Leake County and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2021.
Construction begins on west Hattiesburg gas pipe project wdam.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wdam.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.