West of the water tower, where the chipseal ends, lives a friendly herd of deep red cattle. Across the road, a small structure and young tree row frame pink and amber clouds. Other city of Alliance municipal wellhouses dot the landscape on a tract of land that will host a solar field in the future.
Prairie tapped for water below stands ready to collect light from above. Alliance’s municipal airport had also been considered to host solar arrays early in the process. The city council approved a resolution this past September 6 for a “solar electricity generation project” and agreements for lease and easement, solar power purchase and generator interconnection.
I commend the City’s commitment to renewable energy overall and from a financial aspect. An ideal plan: fill the wellfield and airport expanses with enough panels to meet most if not all our electricity needs to turn our backs on fossil fuels. Not practical, probable or even possible in the near future. That model of sparking an independent generation source looks to have died with the former plant the still dominates the south Alliance skyline.
City Electrical Department Superintendent Kirby Bridge and City Manager Seth Sorensen explained how the new asset will fit into the existing system. Bridge said Sandhills Solar will do all construction of the field itself and ultimately sell electricity at wholesale cost. His crews will rebuild the line to the wellfield, upgrading it to a higher voltage for transmission and tie into the City’s system at the highway and West Third to feed into the Broadwater substation. The field will only cover about a tenth of the wellfield land, Sorensen added. Unlike other installations I have driven by recently, the local solar field will be “out of sight, out of mind,” Bridge noted, a contrast to the airport option.
The percentage of the City’s power, on any given day, drawn from these panels will be less than five percent max. The Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN), a wholesale electricity provider, restricts the amount of green energy – as stipulated in its bylaws – to its participating communities (such as Alliance), Bridge said. However, our town is one of 16 communities such as Sidney, Kimball and Gering “looking to put in solar in Iowa, Nebraska and Colorado,” he added.
So, since the City will not own the panels or exceed a set amount of purchased renewable energy what was the major draw? Sorensen emphasized that the project allows Alliance to lock in a rate for the next 25 years based on a minimum efficiency percentage from the panels. “They (Sandhills Solar) did all the cost benefit on it,” he said. “Solar energy is relatively new to Nebraska.”
“The ability to lock in rates is critical,” Sorensen said, pointing to a 14-25 percent jump in the past year for what the City pays for power. Just one percent annually has been passed on to customers with the rest absorbed into overhead.
“Guaranteed rate for 25 years is hard to pass up,” Bridge agreed, “where we’re not paying anymore than we are right now is the biggest advantage I can see.”
Sandhills Solar expects to finish the project a year from now. That is if everything runs perfectly. I was told even two years may be more realistic. Whenever we capture the initial rays is worth waiting for as Alliance will join Hemingford in sending solar power down the line.