When the City of Wahoo started to develop a solar project that would help supply residents with renewable energy, they knew a location close to a substation would be ideal. After the initial selected site fell through, the City of Wahoo and development partner GenPro Energy Solutions held a community event for the project. At this event, Denise Lawver stepped up with an exciting proposal. Denise and her husband, Mike, would lease part of the parcel off County Road L to the solar project, and the money collected from the lease payments would go to the Wahoo Public Library, where Denise is the Director.
The project began development in late 2020 and was approved for construction in July 2022. A partnership between GenPro Energy Solutions, Sol Systems, Mesner Development, and the City, the solar project has 6,534 solar panels and a total capacity of 2MW-ac, which is enough to power approximately 350 homes a year.
“The 2 MW solar project started as interest from our Board of Public Works having seen many throughout the state. We began discussions with GenPro and looked at our options.”said, Ryan Hurst, General Manager of Wahoo Utilities.
“The main benefit we saw from this project and partnership was affordable power very closely priced to what we buy our blended power from NPPD. The contract on this Purchase Power Agreement is for 30 years and we felt this was a way to hedge a portion of our power portfolio affordability for the next 30 years. When you add this to the added benefit of the Trust of the Library Foundation it was a win-win. Lastly, we know that local carbon-free energy is a benefit for economic development as many companies want to have power provided to them from local carbon-free sources. All around this has been a great partnership and we are excited to work with Sol Systems and GenPro for many years to come.”
The power from the City of Wahoo Utilities blended with NPPD, the hydroelectric power from the Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), and now solar allows the utility to have a balanced electric generation mix between renewables and traditional fossil fuels, making its resource mix approximately 68% carbon free.
A ribbon cutting was held in February to celebrate the new solar project.