Solar power's catching on bigtime on campus.

The University of Maryland College Park has one of the largest solar arrays in the Baltimore-Washington region, with more than 2,600 photovoltaic panels on the roof of its Severn Building. 

It's expected to generate about 792 MWh of electricity in the first year.  That's enough to power 872 homes for one month, and avoids 408 tons of CO2 emissions that would come from burning fossil fuels to get the same amount of juice.

The array is owned by Washington Gas Energy Services, which spent $2 million on the facility installed by Standard Solar.  The project was underwritten in part with a $630,000 state grant, and the university contracted to buy the electricity.

It's one of 16 solar projects supported by the Maryland Energy Administration under its Project Sunburst grant program. Officials say nine of those have been completed so far, providing 5.2 megawatts' worth of solar generating capacity.

(Photo courtesy Maryland Energy Administration)