A local university will soon be home to one of Iowa’s largest solar arrays.

Fairfield-based Ideal Energy Solar is installing a 1.1 megawatt array at the Maharishi University of Management, which will cover five acres of land adjacent to campus. This is over 200-times the size of a typical residential array, according to Ideal Energy, and will include a one-megawatt-hour battery energy storage system, the largest system of its kind in the Midwest. The solar array will power one-third of MUM’s annual electricity needs, and the battery energy storage system will reduce the demand charge portion of MUM’s utility bill by approximately one-third. Construction is scheduled to begin early this summer and be completed in about two months. With two existing solar arrays and a wind turbine on campus, the new solar array will generate over 43% of MUM’s electricity.