Progress Energy will soon be buying electricity from an unusual source of energy: Ted Turner, the founder of the CNN cable news empire.
In an announcement issued Thursday, Raleigh-based Progress will buy the power output from a recent Turner investment: a solar farm near Oxford in Granville County.
The 2.5-megawatt solar farm is jointly owned by Turner Renewable Energy and by a subsidiary of Southern Co., the multi-state electric utility based in Atlanta.
Turner Renewable Energy is owned by media mogul Ted Turner, whose business interests include alternative energy and more than 55,000 head of bison on land holdings spanning 2 million acres in a dozen U.S. states and in Argentina.
John Murawski has been a full-time newspaper reporter since 1991, with stints at Legal Times and The Chronicle of Philanthropy (both in Washington, DC), The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Palm Beach Post (in South Florida) before arriving at the N&O in December 2004. At the N&O he covers energy (nuclear, coal, renewable, efficiency), hydralic fracturing (or "fracking"), public utilities (both electric and natural gas) and health care. His beat includes Progress Energy, PSNC Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas, PowerSecure International, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Biogen Idec and others. You can reach him at 919-829-8932 or