West Plains Solar Farm

 

by Pa Rock

Nosey Neighbor

I no longer take the local newspaper (a long story), and I quit the weekly pinochle club (another long story), so my sources of local news and gossip have essentially been impaired, but I still sit in front of my living room window and type everyday, so I have some notion of when big things are happening around me.

Last year I began seeing logging trucks on the road in front of my house heading toward town.  They were always piled dangerously high with the trunks of native trees.  At first I assumed that one of my neighbors had gone on vacation and another neighbor had come in and logged his land while he was away - that happens, especially with walnut trees which are priced in the range of gold.  But when the trucks kept rolling past, I began to sense that some major construction might be in the offing.

Next came the gravel trucks.  Literally hundreds of them rolled past my house over the span of a couple of months, this time heading away from town.  Land had been cleared, and now a construction site was being prepared.  I began hearing stories that roads were being built out into the hills, and maybe a big housing project was coming in.  Being a cynic, I strongly suspected that something bad was afoot, and being a realist, I knew that whatever it was, it was beyond my control.

But when the news finally reached me, I was pleased.

It turns out that my city, West Plains, Missouri, was converting an old 40-acre landfill that the city owned into something environmentally friendly and useful - a solar farm - a project large enough to power almost two thousand homes per year and provide roughly seven percent of the city's energy needs.  Current estimates are that the city will save $625,000 each year on energy costs, and that those savings will be passed back to the city's electricity consumers and amount to roughly a ten dollar savings per household per month beginning in 2024.

West Plains currently gets all of its electricity from a coal-fired power plant in Sikeston, Missouri, a source that is not environmentally friendly and which will eventually not be able to meet the increasing energy demands of the entire surrounding area.

The new solar farm project, which had it's official ground-breaking in April of this year, is expected to be fully operational by April of next year.  It will consist of 26,000 solar panels.  Evergy Corporation of Kansas City is building the facility and will have operational control for up to thirty years, but the city of West Plains has a buyout option that goes into effect during year eight.  The city and Evergy will jointly oversee operation of the solar farm, which will be essentially maintenance free.  

I drove down by the site a few days ago just being nosey.  It's off of a dirt and gravel road, and nothing can be seen from the road except a sign announcing that it is the solar farm, and lots and lots of chainlink fencing.  I couldn't see any solar panels, and none may be up yet, but the ground that was within view was well manicured.  Evergy plans to plant pollinator-friendly grasses and plants at the site to create "an environmentally-sustainable footprint," and the company also plans to work with the local university and schools to provide opportunities for students to learn about renewable-energy technology.

I am proud of my community for looking to the future in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way.  West Plains, you rock!