Solar developers willing to adapt projects, pay neighbors

Alliant Energy has shifted the location of solar farms to suit neighbors and pays “good neighbor” incentives to encourage open communication about projects.

But the utility that’s in the midst of installing 400 megawatts of solar in Iowa also has found some Iowa counties with ordinances that leave no room for solar development — even with voluntary easements.

Some Iowa farmers “feel like they are forced to toil all day long so people around them can see them driving their tractor and see them growing their crops. If they want to use the land in some other way, they’re being told they can’t do that,” Alliant Spokesman Justin Foss said during a panel discussion Friday as part of The Gazette’s Iowa Ideas conference.

“Linn County has a great ordinance,” he said about Linn County’s revised solar ordinance. “I’ve seen some that say ‘Nope, no matter what you do, you can’t use your land to make revenue off it’,” he said of using land for solar installations.

The 2023 Iowa Climate Statement was published this week and more than 200 scientists from Iowa colleges and universities say Iowa needs more solar energy to combat climate change. Foss told Iowa Ideas attendees that solar and wind energy are allowing investor-owned utilities like Alliant to reduce reliance on coal and natural gas.

But solar projects across the state have gotten a mixed welcome, with some neighbors voicing concerns about land use, the appearance of solar farms and what will happen when the panels need to be replaced or decommissioned.

When revising its solar ordinance, Linn County increased setbacks and required landscaping around new solar installations, among other changes, said Charlie Nichols, county planning and development director, who also was on the Iowa Ideas panel. The ordinance has a score card that provides more points to developers who plan to grow crops under solar panels or who will integrate battery storage.

“To the question ‘Is everyone happy with these ordinances?’ I would say no,” Nichols said. “Our code is a compromise. We’re trying to incorporate the needs, the opinions, the feelings of very different sets of stakeholder groups.”

The ordinance was revised after Linn County supervisors in 2022 approved three controversial utility-grade solar installations on 2,000 acres near Coggon and Palo that together will generate 300 megawatts of power.

Terry Dvorak, manager of Red Lion Renewables, a solar developer in the Des Moines area, said his company has minimized friction with neighbors by working with school districts and cities that want to add solar farms.

Over 15 years in the industry, Dvorak has seen solar developers learn to work with the contours of the land rather than drastically reshaping it. They also try to identify marginal crop land for large-scale projects.

“Prime crop ground in Iowa, that’s $15,000 an acre. A (solar) developer would rather spend $5,000 an acre,” he said.

But not all solar can go on rooftops or parking lots, panelists said.

“It’s the economies of scale,” Foss said. “Roofs are great, but putting a small array on a roof you’ve got to pay a hefty fee for interconnection costs as opposed to putting a large array on the ground.”

Comments: (319) 339-3157; erin.jordan@thegazette.com