{"id":259,"date":"2012-12-15T16:12:37","date_gmt":"2012-12-15T21:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/industrial-park-from-green-grass-to-a-green-solar-future-decatur-county.html"},"modified":"2012-12-15T16:12:37","modified_gmt":"2012-12-15T21:12:37","slug":"industrial-park-from-green-grass-to-a-green-solar-future-decatur-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/industrial-park-from-green-grass-to-a-green-solar-future-decatur-county.html","title":{"rendered":"Industrial park from green grass to a green solar future: Decatur County"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOur Industrial Authority is
\n
\nin favor of solar business now<\/a>;
\nwhat if they seeded some of
\n
\ntheir industrial parks<\/a>
\nwith solar panels like Decatur County is doing?
\nThey think it will make them look like a progressive county.
\nWhat do we think?\n<\/p>\n

\nTy Wilson wrote for WTXL 7 Dec 2012,
\n
\nA solar park is coming to the Decatur County Industrial Park<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nThe Decatur County Industrial park will go from having green grass
\nto having a green future.\n<\/p>\n

\nA Lenexa, Kansas company is building a solar farm at the Decatur
\nCounty Industrial Park.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Decatur County Industrial park will go from having green grass
\nto having a green future.\n<\/p>\n

\nKeith Lyle is the chairman of the Bainbridge Decatur Development
\nAuthority, he says, “We are just extremely excited to have this come
\nfor the community.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n\"Decatur<\/a>
\nAnd, it’s private investment!\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nTrade Winds Energy<\/a> is leasing at least 100 acres to put in solar
\npanels at ten thousand dollars a year.\n<\/p>\n

\nCompany executives says they will invest 17 million dollars into the
\nproject.\n<\/p>\n

\nLyle says, “This will add from the tax aspect a significant revenue
\nstream. When it is all said and done you are looking at a taxable
\namount of 40 million is assets. On the project that is 400 hundred
\nthousand a year in tax revenue.”\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nTrade Wind Energy doesn’t list this project yet
\n(and all the projects they do list are wind projects),
\n
\n<\/a>
\nbut if we take a rule of thumb<\/p>\n


\nof six acres for a megawatt of solar
\npower, 100 acres could be about 16 MW.
\nOr maybe it’s 10 MW, since that’s what
\n
\nCobb EMC’s Davisboro Solar Plant<\/a> is supposed to generate on 100 acres.
\nIt’s way bigger than
\n
\nGeorgia Power’s 1 MW Upson Solar Plant.<\/a>
\nGeorgia Power is getting left in the solar dust.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nJustin Schuver wrote in the Post-Searchlight 16 November 2012,
\n
\nSolar energy \u2018farm\u2019 coming to county<\/a>,\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nDuring Thursday’s meeting of the Development Authority of Bainbridge
\nand Decatur County, Executive Director Rick McCaskill explained that
\nTradewind Energy, headquartered in Lenexa, Kan., seeks to build the
\nsolar farm on flat land in the industrial park, near the county’s
\nairport runways.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nHm, flat land near airport runways:
\nmaybe our Airport Authority should try this.\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nMcCaskill explained that Tradewind Energy wants to place the solar
\nfarm on land near the county airport’s runways, because that land is
\nflat in terrain, and there are not many large structures to create
\nshadows that could interfere with solar power collection. Land near
\na runway is limited in use, because Federal Aviation Administration
\nregulations set a limit on how tall buildings can be, when they are
\nlocated on land adjacent to a runway. McCaskill explained that the
\nsolar panels will be eight feet tall, well within the 10-feet-tall
\nbuilding limit placed on such land.\n<\/p>\n

\n\u201cI would also argue that it’s going to make us look like a
\nprogressive county,\u201d McCaskill said. \u201cYou’ll be able to
\ndrive down [U.S. Highway] 27 and see the solar farm, and hopefully
\nstories will appear in magazines and newspapers about the farm, and
\nit’s going to draw some people’s attention to how progressive we are
\nin Decatur County.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nProgressive! Imagine that.
\nNext to a major highway so people could see it!
\nSort of like we could do
\n
\n\"Solar<\/a>
\nsolar Lowndes High on I-75.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n

\nMcCaskill said he would strongly recommend that local contractors
\nwould be used in the construction of the solar panels, because
\nTradewind Energy does not have its own in-house construction
\ndepartment. He also suggested that a partnership could be
\ninstituted, with the help of Bainbridge College, to provide some
\ntraining for employees who may be interested in working at the solar
\nfarm.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nMaybe they’ll even hire a local architect,
\n
\nunlike Lowndes County.<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nIf Bainbridge and Decatur County can do it,
\nmaybe Valdosta and Lowndes County can.
\nOr maybe Hahira should lead.\n<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,8,18,602,21,23,24,807,178],"tags":[1115,1114,8704,8705,8701,8708,8791,1117,8702,12,7,8711,1118,8713,8714,1116,6,8804,8749],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy","category-education","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-hahira","category-planning","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vlcaa","category-vlcia","tag-bainbridge","tag-decatur-county","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-hahira","tag-kansas","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-planning","tag-progressive","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-tradewind-energy","tag-valdosta","tag-vlcaa","tag-vlcia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}