New meetings set on Palo solar projects

Linn County has rescheduled the three meetings required to vote on two proposed solar projects near Palo.

The Linn County Board of Supervisors will meet Monday, Aug. 29, Tuesday, Aug. 30, and Tuesday, Sept. 6.

All three meetings will begin at 6 p.m. at the Palo Community Center, 2800 Hollenbeck Rd.

The supervisors are set to vote on developer NextEra’s Duane Arnold Solar projects near Palo. A vote on Monday will be the first of three votes needed to rezone the area from agricultural to agricultural with a solar overlay.

The supervisors were scheduled to hold their first meeting on the project Monday but had to cancel the meeting when they discovered the county had failed to publish the required legal notice.

On Tuesday, the county submitted a legal notice to The Gazette announcing that the first meeting will be Monday.

The Duane Arnold Solar I project proposes to use 316 acres of an 857-acre plot to place photovoltaic solar arrays capable of generating up to 50 megawatts of energy.

The Duane Arnold Solar II project would use 815 acres of a 1,780-acre plot to place solar arrays capable of generating up to 150 MW. It also would include a 75-MW, four-hour battery energy storage facility. The battery energy storage system will have about 96 20-by-8-foot containers housing 7,040 lithium-ion battery modules.

While NextEra will develop the project, Alliant Energy filed a proposal with the Iowa Utilities Board to buy the large-scale solar project from NextEra and further develop it into the state’s largest solar and battery storage facility.

Comments: (319) 398-8255; gage.miskimen@thegazette.com