Page County board re-ignites solar ordinance development - KMAland

Page County board re-ignites solar ordinance development | News | kmaland.com

(Clarinda) -- Page County officials are once again looking into developing regulations for solar projects within the county.

Meeting in regular session Thursday night, the Page County Board of Supervisors reviewed several area county ordinances already in place for solar farms and discussed the topic with MidAmerican Energy's Will Dougherty, who was present for the meeting. The county initially began talks of an ordinance in 2020 and extended a 180-day moratorium on commercial solar applications in August. While large-scale solar farms are still fairly new across Iowa, Dougherty says more counties are beginning to look into ordinances as more projects are being developed.

"It's still pretty new, but there's a lot of projects coming down the pipeline in the state of Iowa in general," said Dougherty. "A lot of counties right now are starting to take this up because they see it coming and it's a good thing to do. So, I think we're going to see more and more projects requested by counties and everything."

One of those projects includes a just over 400-acre, 100-megawatt solar farm north of Clarinda around 196th Street and S Avenue, but Dougherty notes it is still a few years down the road. Some of the ordinances reviewed by the board included Mills, Montgomery, Madison, and Fremont counties, with sound-level requirements for non-participant property lines ranging from 40 to 60 decibels. Dougherty says the primary noise concern with solar farms is the power inverters.

"All the inverters are internally placed within the project so they're not on the exterior as you have these fans that cool those inverters down when they're turning it from dc (currents) to ac (currents)," Dougherty explained. "So those are placed on the interior parts of the project to try and create as much buffer as you can from the exterior of the property all the way to neighboring or adjacent properties as well."

Some of the setbacks in the ordinances reviewed also included between 300 and 500 feet for non-participant property lines from the edge of the project. Supervisors Chair Jacob Holmes also inquired about the height requirements, with most counties limiting the panels to 15 feet at full tilt, while Mills County allowed up to 20 feet.

"With building on fairly flat ground when something is 15 to 20 feet tall without hills, you could barely see over these things especially if they're 300 feet from your house," said Holmes. "20 feet tall, or a couple of stories, on all sides, and I'm sure that'd be a very rare instance, but I'm just trying to think about that and picture this because I've never been in the middle of one of these."

Dougherty says his company was consulted during the development of the Mills County ordinance. He outlined the reasoning for the additional five feet.

"The double stacking of (photovoltaics) on a single tracker adds that additional height and allows us to create the row spacing a little further apart and get more vegetation into the actual site itself, so you have less rock, gravel, less piles in the ground, and less ground disturbance," he said. "So, it's a little less invasive from that standpoint, but also to (Holmes') point, it does make them taller when they are fully tracked. But, the way they track from east to west that would be during the early parts of morning and late parts of the night and they'd flatten out in between."

Also unique to Mills County, he says, is a "vegetation scorecard," which can outline the priorities for the county regarding any plants, wildflowers, or pollinators under the solar panels. Supervisor Judy Clark also noted the ordinances differentiated between personal and utility or commercial solar, with some even covering community solar. Dougherty adds that they also typically plan for their solar projects to last 30 years. He adds that most counties they have worked with in the state require a decommissioning and road use agreement as part of the permitting process. The board plans to review other county ordinances further and bring the discussion back next week.

In other business, the board...

--Approved awarding the J55 Base Stabilization and Seal Coat contract to Manatt's Inc. for $1,230,667.15 and the Granular Resurfacing Project covering a variety of farm-to-market roads to Schildberg Construction Company for $493,500.

--Approved the third and final reading of a resolution declaring emergency medical services essential in the county, sending the question of a 75 cent levy to fund the services to the voters on the November ballot.

--Approved the additional $6,050 in library funding for fiscal year 2025 utilizing the community betterment reserve funds generated through the local option sales and service tax.

--Approved the use of the courthouse grounds for the Spirit of the Square Tree Lighting Ceremony on December 5th and decorating and tree lighting from the Friday after Thanksgiving to New Years.