The Clarke County Board of Supervisors on Monday approved a temporary moratorium on the construction of commercial solar panels in unincorporated areas of Clarke County.
At a meeting of county managers, Clarke County Supervisors Randy Dunbar and Dean Robins spoke to Union County supervisors about Creston's new solar farm. Alliant Energy built a solar farm on the east side of Creston that went online in late November. According to an article in the Creston News Advertiser, Alliant Energy has acquired 300 acres of land for the project and is using about 76 acres of it for the solar panel fields. Their Creston project has a capacity of 50 megawatts. The project will be connected to an electricity transmission network via the local substation and generate renewable energy for approximately 11,000 households per year.
A shared concern, however, was how payments would be returned to the county. The payments are made by the state through substitute tax revenues, which are based on the production output. However, there were no income or property taxes in the approximately two years it took to build the solar farm in Union County, resulting in a loss of two years of tax revenue.
At Monday's meeting, Dunbar expressed concerns about what to do if the owner of a solar farm abandoned it and asked the county to clean it up. Similar concerns were raised when discussing wind turbines.
“They’re taking away land,” Dunbar said of solar fields. “There's snakes everywhere, stuff… and they kind of ruin the floor.”
Supervisor Austin Taylor agreed with the proposal to take time to review solar farm regulations under a temporary moratorium and discuss how to protect the county.
“I think all you're doing is making sure you're paying attention to the soil in Clarke County, the people of Clarke County and Clarke County itself as a governing body,” Taylor said.
The temporary moratorium has no impact on the construction of private solar farms in the county. A similar temporary moratorium is currently in effect on construction of commercial wind farms in the unincorporated areas of Clarke County; Regulators recently approved updated regulations that have been working on planning and zoning for commercial wind farms.
There is only one commercial solar farm in Clarke County. The Clarke Solar Farm was dedicated in April 2017 and was developed by CIPCO (Central Iowa Power Cooperative) in collaboration with Clarke Electric Cooperative. According to Clarke Electric's website, the solar page includes the following:
“…1,296 solar panels and generates approximately 514,160 kWh (kilowatt hour) of electricity, enough to power up to 515 homes. Clarke Electric Cooperative and our utility CIPCO worked together on the project.”
The Clarke Solar Farm is located north of town on LeAnn Dr. Clarke Electric Cooperative provides power to rural Clarke County, while Alliant Energy provides power to the cities of Osceola, Murray and Woodburn.