The Mills County Zoning Board unanimously approved the proposed Folsom Lake Solar Project, a 3,200-acre renewable energy development near the Missouri River and west of Interstate 29 in south-western Iowa. Local farmer Tom Green, whose family farms 400 acres in the area, welcomed the decision. Green said traditional row-crop farming in the region has become increasingly difficult to keep financially sustainable, according to reporting by Omaha television station KETV NewsWatch 7.
He confirmed that he hopes to include most of his land in the project.
An Iowa farmer facing falling crop prices and rising machinery costs says leasing his land for solar panels could provide a vital source of income. “We’re getting (crop) prices that we got in the 1950s,” Green told KETV. “Everybody else’s money goes up, farmers’ (crop) prices go down, and the machinery (cost) goes up.”
His comments came after a major renewable energy project received an important local planning approval.
Green said the developer is offering around $1,200 per acre each year.
“It’s running about $1,200 an acre,” Green told KETV. “Our soil quality here is much less in many parts of Iowa,” Frost explained in comments broadcast by KETV. Developer Orion Renewable Energy Group first contacted local landowners about the Folsom Lake Solar Project four to five years ago. The company offered them long-term leases for their land. This would provide a steady income compared with changing grain prices and rising farming costs. “It’s a very good deal. Right now, with the farming and the tariffs and things like that, we’re hardly making enough to pay taxes. Another local farmer, Rick Frost, also supported the solar project. He pointed out that parts of Mills County have poorer soil than other farming areas in Iowa. “It’s good for the soil to give it a rest… I’ll be able to retire someday. And the land will be in a profitable state. So I can pass on to my children.”
The Folsom Lake Solar Project is designed to generate 800 megawatts of electricity annually once completed. Sazzy Gourley, senior project development manager at Orion Renewable Energy Group, told KETV that the project would produce enough electricity to power around 144,000 homes in Iowa. Figures presented by Orion Renewable Energy Group show that the project is expected to generate $36 million in local tax revenue over its planned 35-year operating life. The project is expected to create 10 to 15 permanent jobs to operate and maintain the site, along with hundreds of temporary construction jobs.
So the scale of our project is designed to meet that need,” Gourley told KETV. “There’s a lot of need for new power generation in the area. She added that the company would publicly identify the buyers purchasing the electricity before building permits are issued. The developer also plans to provide millions of pounds in additional grant funding through the Community Foundation for Western Iowa.