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MARYVILLE, Mo. – A Spanish vitality firm intends to start building in Nodaway County on one of many state’s largest photo voltaic farms subsequent yr.
Officers from ACCIONA Power, a subsidiary of Acciona primarily based in Madrid, Spain, met with Nodaway County Commissioners Chris Burns and Scott Stroll final week to debate early plans for the photo voltaic farm, which will probably be constructed within the north- west of Barnard.
Adam Stratton, director of photo voltaic vitality improvement in North America for ACCIONA, instructed commissioners that the corporate has thus far acquired between 1,200 and 1,800 hectares of land on its solution to an estimate of almost 3,000. Stratton mentioned the corporate hopes to amass the remaining land by June subsequent yr. Someplace round half of that land has precise photo voltaic panels on it, Stratton mentioned.
Then, if all goes nicely, the groundbreaking will happen later in 2023. If building begins, the 300-megawatt photo voltaic plant will probably be operational by the top of 2025.
As with the wind farms that at present reside within the county, Stratton instructed commissioners that the corporate will conform to a street upkeep settlement for injury attributable to vehicles throughout building.
In comparison with a wind farm, nevertheless, he mentioned a photo voltaic farm would possible require extra vehicles, however lighter hundreds, leading to much less injury total.
At the moment, Stratton mentioned to anticipate between 150 and 200 employees to stay within the space and one other 15 full-time operational jobs to function the photo voltaic farm.
ACCIONA has invested between $300-350 million within the mission thus far, Stratton mentioned. The mission has been within the works since about 2018 underneath Tenaska Power, which owns a wind farm in Nodaway County. ACCIONA purchased the event from Tenaska in 2019 as half of a bigger acquisition of 20 photo voltaic initiatives throughout the US, and Stratton mentioned the 2 firms proceed to work on the photo voltaic farm. collectively.
In accordance with the Photo voltaic Power Industries Affiliation, photo voltaic accounted for about 428 MW of energy produced in Missouri on the finish of June. That quantity will improve considerably as photo voltaic initiatives start to develop throughout the state.
The one deliberate for Nodaway County would nonetheless be one of many largest in each space and output, rivaling a 1,400-acre farm within the works in Adair County.
Nonetheless, in contrast to wind farms, there isn’t any statewide commonplace for property taxes for photo voltaic farms.
Earlier this yr, a activity pressure made up of state lawmakers, native tax assessors and renewable vitality teams started assembly to attempt to give you a advice for the state legislature. to be thought-about on the subsequent session in January.
ACCIONA says it’s the largest clear vitality operator worldwide.
