Large solar power projects up and running in northern Utah

A project eight years in the making to generate clean solar power underneath the sunny, wide-open skies of northern Utah’s Box Elder County is now fully operational.

A contingent of investors, managers, customers and construction workers gathered in late May at the site of the Steel Solar project in Plymouth, where approximately 250,000 solar panels are now working to generate 80 megawatts of clean energy for sale to communities all over Utah and several other western states.

“Many want clean energy. Few are actually able to make it through all of bumps and hurdles to get there,” said Hy Martin, chief development officer for D.E. Shaw Renewable Investments, the owner of the project. “Steel Solar took a long time to build. It was tough. It was hard. It took tenacity from many parties to actually make it happen.”

Named for its proximity to the Nucor Steel plant in Plymouth, Steel Solar covers 900 acres of former farm and rangeland owned by Steve Welling, whose family grew wheat on the property for decades before Welling purchased it and began raising cattle there.

A new opportunity for the land surfaced in 2016 when Christine Mikell, a pioneer in Utah renewable energy development for more than 20 years, approached Welling with an idea to house a large solar generating facility on the property.

“I had a lease for wind there for several years and they backed out,” Welling said. “Then these guys contacted me. I said ‘Well, wind just left me — what makes you think this is gonna happen?’ She (Mikell) said ‘Well, we’re better at selling the power,’ which she must have been.”

Mikell, who has been developing renewable energy in the state since 2001, started out with a focus on wind power projects. She was instrumental in the state’s first wind project in Spanish Fork, and has since moved into solar power in a state that offers prime conditions for it — especially at the northern end, where the wide-open spaces needed for solar projects still exist.

“Northern Utah is really the place to go,” said Mikell, who was instrumental in the starting the Utah Office of Energy Development before moving into the private sector, where she now serves as principal of Enyo Renewable Energy.

Steel Solar utilizes state-of-the-art solar panels that can be quickly adjusted to adapt to current weather conditions. When the wind picks up, the panels can pivot to avoid bearing the full brunt of its force. When it snows, they can be tilted upward so the snow will slide off, or to minimize damage during a hail storm.

CLEAN ENERGY FOR LOCAL COMMUNITIES

Energy from the project is being sold through purchase agreements with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, an interlocal agency that provides wholesale energy on a nonprofit basis to community-owned power systems throughout the Intermountain West. The group’s membership includes 50 members from Utah, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico and Wyoming.

UAMPS Chief Executive and General Manager Mason Baker said Steel Solar is the organization’s largest source of solar energy, and fits well with the group’s goal of obtaining energy from a diverse range of sources.

“We’re in a big transition for our industry, and this project is part of it,” Baker said. “It is a very cost-effective project ... a nice resource to have in our portfolio to serve our members. It’s gonna have a lasting benefit for the next 20 years as we go through this energy transition.”

He said 20 UAMPS member cities will benefit from the energy produced by Steel Solar, including Logan and Hyrum at the northern end of the state.

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, it had far-reaching impacts on the U.S. and global economies, and Steel Solar was no exception. Originally slated to come online in 2022, the project ran into significant equipment delays due to supply chain issues precipitated by the pandemic.

“The project was very close to almost not happening given all the headwinds that it faced,” Martin said, “but projects are always a balance of what challenges you face and what challenges you overcome.”

In addition to delays in securing the panels and other necessary equipment, he said the project was hampered by rising interest rates and other issues.

Others acknowledged the challenges faced by the project, and lauded the tenacity of everyone involved in overcoming them.

“It is so hard to bring new projects online,” Baker said, “so it’s a nice moment to sit back and actually celebrate them. The reality is a lot of them don’t get over the finish line.”

BOOTS ON THE GROUND

The workers who built the project were supplied by SOLV Energy, a San Diego, California-based company that has partnered with D.E. Shaw on dozens of other projects around the country.

Kevin Deters, chief operating officer of SOLV, also mentioned the significant obstacles to overcome in building Steel Solar. The company worked throughout last winter in order to catch up and get the project ready.

“With the delay that happened in the solar market with regards to the panels, this had to go through a major redesign, and a lot of time where work wasn’t occurring at the site,” Deters said. “Working through winter is no fun, especially here. It’s cold and the wind blows, but we prevailed.”

He said SOLV had upwards of 200 workers on site during the building phase. Now that it’s up and running, due to the highly automated nature of the project, it requires just a handful of workers to be on site at any given time.

As part of the Steel Solar ribbon-cutting ceremony in May, D.E. Shaw provided two $10,000 scholarships for local students looking to study energy development in college.

“This is a program that we try to develop with each of our new projects that stimulate the new energy economy,” Martin said. “We want to make sure not just that projects get built, but that the future leadership is thinking about what that new energy economy could be.”

SISTER PROJECT

Less than 30 miles away from Steel Solar, another project of similar size and scope is now running. The Rocket Solar project, co-owned by D.E. Shaw and Enyo, is another 80-megawatt producing solar farm that is selling the energy it produces to Rocky Mountain Power.

Located in Promontory, Rocket Solar is named for the Northrop Grumman facility nearby that develops rocket motors for the U.S. space program.

Martin said it marks D.E. Shaw’s eighth project in Utah, where the global investment and technology development firm has invested more than $800 million in various energy projects.

The company “has a long history of being involved in the Utah energy market and the Utah clean energy market,” Martin said. “We’re obviously thrilled to do that for a host of reasons with our partners in the state, including Box Elder County and a number of folks.”