Our Industrial Authority is in favor of solar business now; what if they seeded some of their industrial parks with solar panels like Decatur County is doing? They think it will make them look like a progressive county. What do we think?

Ty Wilson wrote for WTXL 7 Dec 2012, A solar park is coming to the Decatur County Industrial Park,

The Decatur County Industrial park will go from having green grass to having a green future.

A Lenexa, Kansas company is building a solar farm at the Decatur County Industrial Park.

The Decatur County Industrial park will go from having green grass to having a green future.

Keith Lyle is the chairman of the Bainbridge Decatur Development Authority, he says, “We are just extremely excited to have this come for the community.”

And, it’s private investment!

Trade Winds Energy is leasing at least 100 acres to put in solar panels at ten thousand dollars a year.

Company executives says they will invest 17 million dollars into the project.

Lyle says, “This will add from the tax aspect a significant revenue stream. When it is all said and done you are looking at a taxable amount of 40 million is assets. On the project that is 400 hundred thousand a year in tax revenue.”

Trade Wind Energy doesn’t list this project yet (and all the projects they do list are wind projects), but if we take a rule of thumb of six acres for a megawatt of solar power, 100 acres could be about 16 MW. Or maybe it’s 10 MW, since that’s what Cobb EMC’s Davisboro Solar Plant is supposed to generate on 100 acres. It’s way bigger than Georgia Power’s 1 MW Upson Solar Plant. Georgia Power is getting left in the solar dust.

Justin Schuver wrote in the Post-Searchlight 16 November 2012, Solar energy ‘farm’ coming to county,

During Thursday’s meeting of the Development Authority of Bainbridge and Decatur County, Executive Director Rick McCaskill explained that Tradewind Energy, headquartered in Lenexa, Kan., seeks to build the solar farm on flat land in the industrial park, near the county’s airport runways.

Hm, flat land near airport runways: maybe our Airport Authority should try this.

McCaskill explained that Tradewind Energy wants to place the solar farm on land near the county airport’s runways, because that land is flat in terrain, and there are not many large structures to create shadows that could interfere with solar power collection. Land near a runway is limited in use, because Federal Aviation Administration regulations set a limit on how tall buildings can be, when they are located on land adjacent to a runway. McCaskill explained that the solar panels will be eight feet tall, well within the 10-feet-tall building limit placed on such land.

“I would also argue that it’s going to make us look like a progressive county,” McCaskill said. “You’ll be able to drive down [U.S. Highway] 27 and see the solar farm, and hopefully stories will appear in magazines and newspapers about the farm, and it’s going to draw some people’s attention to how progressive we are in Decatur County.”

Progressive! Imagine that. Next to a major highway so people could see it! Sort of like we could do solar Lowndes High on I-75.

McCaskill said he would strongly recommend that local contractors would be used in the construction of the solar panels, because Tradewind Energy does not have its own in-house construction department. He also suggested that a partnership could be instituted, with the help of Bainbridge College, to provide some training for employees who may be interested in working at the solar farm.

Maybe they’ll even hire a local architect, unlike Lowndes County.

If Bainbridge and Decatur County can do it, maybe Valdosta and Lowndes County can. Or maybe Hahira should lead.

-jsq

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