More local community solar projects being facilitated by the Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska (MEAN) are slated to come online this summer for participating communities.
The projects, which have a combined nameplate capacity of 21 megawatts, are a collaborative effort with Omaha, Neb.-based Sandhills Energy. They are located in 15 communities in Colorado, Iowa and Nebraska and will provide solar energy to communities that are served wholesale power supply by MEAN.
Projects that recently went online were Crete, Gering and Stuart in Nebraska. The projects in Sidney and Alliance, Neb., are expected to be online this summer. The remaining projects are expected to come online later this year. Three of the projects—in Ansley, Pender and Imperial, Neb., went online earlier.
Sandhills Energy, the developer of the solar projects, co-hosted groundbreaking ceremonies in Alliance and Sidney in Nebraska last June to kick off the construction period.
MEAN awarded a joint Request for Proposal to Sandhills Energy in 2021 on behalf of its interested wholesale power participant communities.
Each participating community is contracting for energy output for their respective projects through power purchase agreements with Sandhills Energy.
By issuing a joint RFP on behalf of the participating communities, lower costs can be achieved through economies of scale. The energy produced by each community’s solar project will be used to offset a portion of their wholesale power supply through MEAN.
The projects align with MEAN’s 2050 carbon neutral vision, which was approved in 2020 by the MEAN Board of Directors.
In addition to facilitating the community solar projects, MEAN as an organization also approved power purchase agreements with Sandhills Energy for 12.7 megawatts of energy at four of the community solar project sites: Alliance, Gering and Sidney in Nebraska and Yuma in Colorado.
