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MOUNT AIRY, N.C. -- Mount Airy's first solar farm could be generating electricity in just a few weeks. Crews have begun installing the more than 5,000 solar panels that will power the city's waste water treatment plant and serve hundreds of residential and business customers nearby.

Sometime in late September O2Energies will throw the switch on Mayberry Solar, sending the electricity it generates to the Duke Energy electrical grid.

"And all the customers that are in this vicinity will use that power,” said Joel Olsen, the company's managing director. “The closest load or user of electricity is the waste water treatment plant, which uses power 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

Olsen said as many as 500 homes and businesses would benefit when usage was at its peak.

"As you can see on days like today when the sun is up, the air conditioner's turned on, people get to their factories or their computers and turn it on, this is when we have the peak load," said Olsen.

Olsen said Mayberry Solar has generated dozens of jobs and added to the skill set of dozens of workers.

"Many of the teams we're working with are gaining valuable workforce experience,” he said. “They may never have worked on a solar project before, but now they've worked on one or two."

"We're training carpenters, electricians, masons that are out of work a little bit right now," said C & C Construction's Christopher Clark.

Olsen said the average age of North Carolina's power plants is about 50 years old and sooner or later they would need to be retired and replaced. He said solar farms like Mayberry Solar would become increasingly important generators of electricity across the state.

"This is a huge economic opportunity and solar is but one of the technologies that we're going to have to invest in," he said.

Several months ago, 02Energies sponsored a daylong course for contractors at Surry Community College. The course was aimed at educating the 26 companies on potential opportunities to work on the project.