Correction: Ozarks Electric Cooperative can begin construction on a solar power facility outside Springdale after the Washington County Planning Board gave preliminary approval for the large-scale development Thursday. The utility must then come back to the board for final large-scale development approval after construction and inspections are complete. The process was described wrongly in this article.
FAYETTEVILLE -- Ozarks Electric Cooperative can move forward with planning a 1-megawatt solar power facility just east of Springdale.
The Washington County Planning Board cleared the project's preliminary development permit Thursday. Now the utility can draw a formal construction plan, which then must be given final approval by the same board before construction gets started.
The project could pump out enough electrons for hundreds of homes. It sailed through the board meeting with only a few questions and no opposition.
No neighbors submitted comments to county planners either for or against the project, planner Courtney McNair told the board.
The company hopes to arrange about 4,000 solar panels in a 5-acre grid a few feet above a paved surface. A spokeswoman said earlier this month it could be complete by early next year if all goes smoothly.
"We know that our members are interested in renewable energy, and we want to be able to offer solutions and programs to meet their needs," Mitchell Johnson, Ozarks Electric president and CEO, said in a July 15 release billing the project as "the first utility-scale, member-owned solar power generation facility in Arkansas."
Ozarks Electric, its fellow cooperative Carroll Electric and Southwestern Electric Power provide the bulk of Northwest Arkansas power. Ozarks Electric power flows to about 70,000 customers in the region, most of them in Washington County.
The new solar facility's capacity would be a drop in the 350-megawatt bucket of Ozarks Electric's system, but it's part of a growing push for more environmentally friendly energy in Arkansas and across the country.
Two other large-scale solar farms are being planned elsewhere in the state. While solar energy still comprises less than one percent of the country's overall power mix, it grew by six times between 2010 and 2014, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The association estimates 1 megawatt is enough juice for roughly 200 homes depending on location and average energy use.
Greg McGee, one of Ozarks Electric's representatives at Thursday's meeting, told the board the facility could power as many as a thousand homes, though he added in an interview it all depends on the time of year and the types of homes grabbing the power.
"If you're driving a Hummer, you're not going to get as far as a Civic," he said.
NW News on 07/31/2015