The smooth sailing continued for 4 Rivers Electric Cooperative’s solar energy project at Wednesday’s Lyon County Commission meeting.
Commissioners approved the solar energy facility in the 2700 block of Road M. 4 Rivers General Manager Dennis Svanes has touted the cost savings at the customer and cooperative level since this was announced before Thanksgiving.
Svanes says 4 Rivers will pass those savings on to its customers as soon as the project is generating power, which could be as soon as early June.
The so-called sun farm will be built near 4 Rivers’ Americus substation and will also provide power to the Thunderbird substation west of Emporia. Construction could begin next month.
Commissioner Scott Briggs says 4 Rivers owns the land for the new facility, which speeds up the process. He also says it’s a good fit for the Americus substation.
11:30 am Wednesday: Lyon County Commission approves solar energy facility east of Americus
Come next summer, there could well be a solar energy facility up and running in Lyon County.
As part of their action meeting Wednesday, county commissioners formally approved the project as proposed by 4 Rivers Electric Cooperative and recommended earlier this month by the Lyon County Planning and Appeals Board. The so-called sun farm is set for construction in the 2700 block of Road M, near an existing 4 Rivers substation, and will provide power to both the Americus substation and the Thunderbird substation outside Emporia.
Based on prior energy ventures, this project is moving forward on an abnormally fast track. The facility was announced in mid-November. By contrast, it took several years for the Emporia Energy Center west of Reading to go from proposal to approval to finished product. The Reading Wind Energy facility, meanwhile, went over a decade from when it was announced to when it was completed.
Construction could start next month and be finished by June. The facility could generate a megawatt of electricity, enough to power around 200 homes.
