Inject that much economic activity into our County.
The almost toal loss of tobacco and dairy significantly reduced agriculture’s ability to bring outside money into our area.
Solar can replace that lost revenue. More acres means more revenue and more protected topsoil along with reduced ag chemical pollution.
Unlike the rock in the local Carmuse limestone mine, selling solar elecricity will not deplete a finite resource. (If the sun goes out, life on earth as we know it ends.)
In addition to the landowner’s income,
solar will also increase area emplyment.
Dramitically during the one year constructin phase
Solar is mostly slated to replace row crops and cow-calf operations. Row crops are highly mechanized with low labor requirements per acre. While cow-calf operations have concentrated activity, overall they require little full-time labor. The Hillcrest Solar Farm demonstrates that Solar supports more jobs per acre. Read more
Dramitically during the decommissioning phase (A bond will be posted before construction begins to pay for deconstruction.)
Local tax districts will typically receive $244.38 from one acre of Solar, compared to the $7.58 per acre average farmland now contributes.
This 3124% increase can have this result when considered over the 30-year life, if 6,000 acres, less than 4% of Mason County’s farmland, is Solar . (2 significant digits displayed) See detailed explanation of calculations
Second Mason County does not currently have enough transmission capacity to move between 2,000 and 4,000 Mw of power out of the area. (The range is whether the 20,000 Acres averages needing 5 or 10 acres to produce each solar Mw.)
The EKP Spurlock Station is expected to stay on line for decades and so its output will continue to consume a significant portion of the local tranmission capacity.
The majority of J. M. Stewart power moved north into central Ohio and so it closure did not free up significant Mason County transmisison capacity .
Each long distance electric tranmission line has a finite capacity. That capacity can be consummed by connectioning a solar farm anywhere along its length. As Mason County delays connecting solar farms, our tranmission lines’ capacity may be consumed by solar farms in other locales.
Establishing additional long-distance electric transmission infrastructure is very expensive. Availability of nearby transmission capacity is a prime factor determining a solar farm’s financial viability.
For these reasons Mason County cannot, in the near future, transmit the power from 20,000 acres of solar.
(2 significant digits displayed) See detailed explanation of calculations