Latest / Illinois Valley - Shaw Local / Utica solar farm to go live late summer 2027, offering Ameren customers 15% savings

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Utica solar farm to go live late summer 2027, offering Ameren customers 15% savings · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Utica solar farm to go live late summer 2027, offering Ameren customers
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  15% savings.
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  Written by Emily Beebe.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice, brought to you
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  by Everlit.
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  A field that sat unused south of Route 6 is on its
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  way to becoming a community solar farm, and if the timeline holds,
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  it will start sending power to the grid late next summer.
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  Utica Solar is a 6.7-megawatt project being built, owned and operated by
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  Nexamp, a company founded in 2007 by two U.S. Army Veterans. The
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  company is headquartered in Boston, runs a second headquarters in Chicago and
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  has about 60 active projects in Illinois. The site, just west of
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  Route 178, is about 28 acres of fenced farmland that will hold
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  just over 10,000 American-made solar panels mounted on tracking systems that follow
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  the sun through the day.
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  This is for us a little bit on the larger side, said
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  Keith Hevenor, communication manager at Nexamp. Most of our projects probably are
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  more in the three to five megawatt range.
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  Construction began at the start of June, and Nexamp is targeting permission
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  to operate from Ameren by Sept. 1, 2027. The project was years
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  in the making before that. The company leases rather than buys its
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  sites, typically under 25 to 30-year agreements with landowners, and looks for
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  land near electrical infrastructure where panels can connect to the grid.
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  Like other community solar farms, Utica Solar will not send power directly
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  to subscribers homes. It feeds the grid, and Ameren pays Nexamp for
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  that power in the form of bill credits, which Nexamp then shares
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  with subscribers at a discount. In Illinois, that discount is 15%.
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  Hevenor used a household that uses $100 of electricity a month as
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  an example: the subscriber would receive about $100 in credits to offset
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  their Ameren bill, then be billed $85 by Nexamp, reflecting the $15
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  discount. Credits are annualized, since panels generate more power in long summer
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  days than short winter ones.
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  There’s no other fee. There’s no enrollment fee. There’s no setup fee.
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  There’s nothing, Hevenor said. The only thing you’re paying for is the
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  credits that you earn that go toward offsetting your utility bill.
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  Subscriptions are month-to-month, with no cancellation fee and no credit check, and
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  subscribers don’t have to live near Utica. Anyone in Ameren’s service territory
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  can subscribe. A project of this size could support about 1,000 residential
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  subscribers, though a portion of Utica Solar’s capacity is committed to anchor
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  customers.
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  The build itself is being done by local contractors, providing typically 40
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  to 50 jobs over a 12 to 18-month construction window. Once the
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  farm goes live, no one will work on site regularly. Nexamp contracts
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  with local electricians as needed and local landscaping companies for mowing and
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  snow plowing.
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  The project also will generate tax revenue for the village of Utica.
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  Because the solar farm changes the land’s tax classification from agricultural to
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  commercial, Nexamp pays commercial property taxes on the site.
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  Nexamp establishes a decommissioning bond at the start of every project, with
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  money set aside to cover removing and recycling equipment when the farm
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  reaches the end of its life. Steel poles are driven into the
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  ground, along with one or two 10-by-10 concrete pads for transformers and
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  inverters, and a fence.
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  Hevenor said the land could essentially be returned to farmland once the
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  project ends, and the lease can be renewed by both sides or
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  the land returned to its owner.
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  As for the timeline, Hevenor said there is little that could delay
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  the project at this stage. The schedule could slip potentially 30 to
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  60 days depending on Ameren’s interconnection queue, with testing expected over the
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  summer.
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  I can’t say the schedule wouldn’t change at all, but I can
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  say that it’s rare that it changes significantly at this stage, he
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  said.