The Ohio Power Siting Board is expected to take action Thursday on one of several proposed solar farms in the county.
The Cadence Solar project will be in front of OPSB Thursday for approval.
“My expectation is the Power Siting Board will take action to approve that application,” Assistant Union County Prosecutor Thayne Gray said.
The Cadence Solar project is a proposed 275-megawatt solar-powered electric generation facility. The company already has about 5,100 acres under lease in Union County, the majority of which is south of state Route 47, between Yearsly and Storms roads and north of Route 347.
While OPSB is considering the specific project, county officials continue to explore options for dealing with all of them
At a recent work session, the Union County Commissioners met with Gray to discuss the impact of legislation that allows communities to prohibit solar and wind energy projects as well as of a program that allows projects to make an annual payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT).
At the work session, the commissioners discussed a bulletin by the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, outlining Senate Bill 52. The legislation allows county commissioners to create what it calls an “exclusionary zone” where certain solar and wind electricity generation facilities would be prohibited.
Gray said the bill would allow the commissioners to prohibit the solar farms on a “project by project basis.”
“If you look at a particular project and decide it doesn’t look good, we don’t like it or whatever, you can say ‘No’ to a project,” Gray explained.
The legislation also adds two, non-voting ad-hoc members for each project, a county commissioner and a township trustee from the service area, to the Ohio Power Siting Board, which is currently comprised of seven voting members and four permanent advisory members.
The act also requires a wind or solar developer to submit a plan and cost estimate for the decommissioning of the facility. The developer must post a performance bond equal to the amount of the estimated cost.
The legislation, however, also allows projects that are already in are in the power network’s new service queue, have received their system impact study from power network’s and have paid the application fee by the effective date of the bill to be grandfathered in.
OPSB officials have said the Cadence solar project and the Acciona project, a 325-megawatt solar farm on nearly 3,400 acres of contracted land in York and Washington townships, are already through the process and would not be subject to the exclusionary zone.
Officials said there is at least one project in the planning phase, that they do not know the status of.
They also talked about a PILOT for projects. Generally, a PILOT exempts the property from paying local tangible personal property tax and real property tax in exchange for an annual payment of up to $9,000 per megawatt generated. Of that that payment, $7,000 is divided among taxing entities with the other $2,000 per megawatt generation going into the county general fund.
To qualify for the PILOT, a certain percentage of the construction workforce must be from Ohio, the developer must enter a road use maintenance agreement with the county, there must be a first-responder training program and there must be an apprenticeship program for the utility.
In September, the company hoping to develop the Cadence Solar project, told the commissioners that with the PILOT, the project would pay about $80-$85 million over the 35-year life of the project. The facility could pay $90-$95-million in taxes over the same period.
“I just keep running this in my head,” Commissioner Dave Burke said. “If you don’t do the PILOT, the school would benefit, probably more so than a PILOT, on the front end because the assets would have a higher value.”
He acknowledged that project developers would work to depreciate the value of the equipment and property value could decrease.
Gray said the PILOT likely reduces the overall amount the district receives “but it gives a stable revenue stream through the life of the project.”
He said that, “because of the way it works, it is all frontloaded and then toward the end of the project, you get much lower revenue.”
Gray said he is not sure if entities would be able to set the early money aside to balance the loss of revenue during the final years of the project. He said he believes that many districts would rather have the stability.
Commissioner Chris Schmenk said she has heard that same thing. She said she was part of a meeting where school finance experts said they believe most school districts “will favor the PILOT because of that guarantees steady source of income that they can bond against.”
Commissioner Dave Burke said he wants to hear that from the districts, specifically mentioning the North Union School District where the solar farms are proposed.
“If North Union wants the PILOT, I want a letter, on North Union letterhead, signed by the superintendent, stating they want it and why,” Burke said.
Officials said they expect to begin construction in the first quarter of 2022, expect to be online operational and generating power by the end of 2023. Company officials have asked the commissioners to make a decision on about the PILOT by December.