Power struggle over Minnesota solar project

[October 13, 2015]  By Tom Steward / October 13, 2015 /  

Opponents of a 62 megawatt solar generating facility proposed for 515 acres of cropland in rural southwestern Minnesota insist they still have a chance to stop the project. But their case hinges on an obscure state regulation put on the books to protect farmland from being plowed under for conventional power plants.

The power struggle pits a handful of farm families and rural residents against Nextera Energy Resources, a Florida-based renewable energy developer vying to build the second biggest solar installation in the state.

“It’s kind of a David versus Goliath story,” said Janelle Geurts, who grew up on the Lyon County farm she works with husband John. “You just sit here and try to exhaust every effort you can, which we are trying to do. But they’ve got every angle covered, let’s put it that way.”

Nextera needs approval from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to plant more than 200,000 photovoltaic panels on land where crops are currently being harvested for what could be the last time. The developer cites the economics of scale as the reason for the super-sized, by Minnesota standards, project. The sun power would tie into Xcel Energy’s transmission lines near Marshall, helping the utility meet a state mandate for 1.5 percent of retail electricity to be solar by 2020.
 

“The team continues to stay engaged with both local and state officials as well as the community and is confident the project, if approved, would have a positive impact on the local economy,” Steve Stengel, Nextera Energy Resources communications director, said in a statement.

At an October 20 and 21 hearing, an administrative law judge will consider the applicability of a state regulation restricting the amount of acreage classified as prime farmland under federal standards that can be taken for electric generation.

“To me, it doesn’t make much sense, to have what is supposed to be a green policy, and a very un-green proposal, in my mind, by Nextera,” said Court Anderson, a Minneapolis attorney who represents several landowners.

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The rule prohibits power plants from using more than one half acre of prime cropland per megawatt of capacity. The formula limits the 62 megawatt proposed facility to 31 acres, far fewer than the 364 acres planned for the solar array.

But a provision allowing for approval of projects in areas without “a feasible and prudent alternative” complicates everything.

“It would be impractical to site a similarly sized large solar project (even assuming land could be acquired) within this area without impacting prime farmland,” Nextera Director of Development Brandon Stankiewicz said in testimony filed with the state. “… Prime farmland is the predominant land type in this region of the state.”

A state environmental review of the proposed 515 acre site identified 187 acres of designated prime farmland, along with 290 more acres that would qualify, if drained. That amounts to one-tenth of one percent of the county’s 386,000 acres of farmland. The land could revert to agricultural purpose after the project’s likely 25-year lifespan.

“The change in land use would result in a small annual loss of overall crop production in Lyon County … and in the state generally,” according to the Marshall Solar Energy Project Environmental Assessment from the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

While property values, aesthetics and other issues concern opponents, the loss of agricultural land tops their list. Residents also argue that plenty of alternative sites exist in neighboring counties with less valuable land.

“I think something has got to be in place going forward to protect our natural resources, before we go and start gobbling it up here and all of a sudden go, gosh, what did we just do?” Geurts said.

Ten family farms reside within a mile of the project’s footprint, some just hundreds of feet from the planned solar fields.

“There’s some days, you look out across the buildings and you just start crying, thinking, I’ve busted my hump on my property to get what I’ve got and they’re destroying it,” said Chuck Muller, who would see a field of solar panels from his deck. “And then the next time, you could look and you get so mad, you could bite nails in half.”

The PUC board will consider the administrative law judge’s recommendation in deciding whether to approve the project, likely in January 2016. Nextera hopes to build and begin operating the solar facility in 2016.