Solar energy project gains new start

Efforts to build a large-scale solar energy complex southwest of Mountain Home gained a new start last week after the county's planning and zoning commission recommended new permits associated with the project.

During a public hearing Dec. 18, the eight-person commission unanimously recommended approving a set of five new conditional use permits for the Grand View PV Solar One project.

Located off the Grand View Highway in a field leased from the J.R. Simplot Co., near the Nicholson Ranch, the multi-phase project would produce up to 80 megawatts of electricity when complete. The 20 megawatts generated by each of the four solar farms is equivalent to the annual energy usage of 6,000 homes in Idaho.

Included in these permits was a request to build a substation that would tie together these solar farms and transmit their electricity to Idaho Power's main transmission line at C.J. Strike Dam.

Last March, the company heading the project resubmitted a conditional use permit, limited to the first phase of the overall project, after a one-year extension expired in January. The planning and zoning commission also approved two more requests from the solar company to extend its conditional use permits on the third and fourth phases of the generating complex, which were originally approved by the county in May 2012.

Two years old, representatives Grandview PV Solar One sold one of its energy facility sites to a another developer, which was then expected to start construction shortly afterward. However, that company was unable to get that project started, prompting the solar firm to negotiate to take back ownership of that land, said Robert Paul, managing member with Alternative Power Development Northwest LLC, which submitted the permits.

During last week's meeting, the alternative energy company resubmitted two conditional use permits on the third and fourth phases of the solar farm project. Both permits were granted two-year extensions earlier this year.

According to Paul, the company opted to renew the permits since there was a possibility those extensions could expire before construction on those solar farms were able to begin.

"We renewed the permits to ensure everything would be OK... to make sure there are no wrinkles" with regards to the project, he said.

Paul estimates it would take about six months to build these solar generating facilities.

Each of the four solar generating complexes would include approximately 78,000 solar panels, each measuring three by five feet. These panels will sit on steel, A-frame structures known as barns. Angled to catch the most sunlight throughout the year, each of these structures will rise more than seven feet off the desert floor.

Similar to first-generation mass production solar cells developed in the 1950s, the generators in the Grand View project use the latest advances in photovoltaic technology, which converts absorbed sunlight into electricity. A matte finish on each panel provides additional benefits by absorbing sunlight without the reflective glare of earlier solar cells, Paul said.

When county officials approved the first phase of the solar complex in April 2010, it represented one the first of its kind in Idaho, Paul said. The project's second phase was approved nine months later.

The alternative energy complex provides places like Elmore County a "tremendous economic opportunity," without the environmental concerns associated with fossil fuel power plants, Paul said in a previous meeting before the planning and zoning commission.

Over the past three years, the project has seen its share of setbacks. Earlier this year, the company missed a key deadline to deliver electricity to Idaho Power. The Grandview PV Solar One project was scheduled to deliver up to 20 megawatts of electricity to Idaho Power by Jan. 12, but the date came and passed, fueling uncertainty over the project's fate as the state's alternative energy industry struggled.

Paul said the solar energy facility remained "embroiled with public controversy over renewable energy" in recent months.

Key to this controversy was a Power Purchase Agreement submitted to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission in June 2010. The agreement sought to pave the way for the Grand View solar complex to sell its power output to Idaho Power.

However, with the solar complex not completed by the January 2013 deadline, the Grand View company requested to voluntarily end that initial agreement. The motion filed with the state public utilities commission included a confidential settlement between the solar firm and Idaho Power.

Paul expects it'll take about 90 days to resolve the power purchase agreement with Idaho Power. If everything remains on schedule, construction on the solar complex could start by the third quarter of 2014.

As alternative power company ironed out its agreement with Idaho Power, it also faced a separate legal battle with Walbridge East LLC, which was expected to design and build the solar plant.

A civil case filed with the U.S. District Court in Boise alleged that the construction firm was "stiffed" on work it had completed on the project.

The solar complex is one in a series of alternative energy projects in Idaho that ran into complications and legal hurdles in recent years with a number of other projects across the state being scuttled.

For example, the Exergy Development Group LLC in Boise mothballed some $323 million worth of wind projects as well as separate digesters that were to have been located at southern Idaho dairies.

Idaho only recently completed a rewrite of rules governing alternative energy projects in the state that developers like Exergy have blamed for turbulence in their industry, in particular with finding financing.

What's more, Idaho has no renewable portfolio standard like Washington and Oregon that sets long-term mandates for regulated utilities to buy renewable power like the kind generated by wind or solar projects. Without such a standard, environmental groups say individual projects like Grandview will struggle to succeed because utilities like Idaho Power have little incentive to work with them through challenges.

"There's all sort of hurdles and disagreements," said Idaho Conservation League's Ben Otto, who advocates for more renewable energy sources. "When you get down to the nuts and bolts, it doesn't actually work" without a renewable portfolio standard.

The project provides places such as Elmore County a "tremendous economic opportunity," without the environmental concerns associated with fossil fuel power plants, Paul said in a previous meeting before the planning and zoning commission.