The proposed Niyol Solar Project will be back before the public and Yuma County Commissioners on Monday.
The commissioners will hold a hearing to accept pubic comment at 1 p.m. on October 30. (It had been scheduled for September 29, but moved to October.) It will be in the commissioners meeting room in the Yuma County Courthouse in Wray. All interested persons are invited to attend the public hearing and to express their views, either orally or in writing.
The proposed project would consist of up to a 200-megawatt (MW) solar facility and up to 200 MW of battery storage. The project would be located approximately eight miles north of Yuma. The application is on file at the commissioners office and open to public for review.
Niyol Solar is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources. Representatives held a public meeting about the project last November in the Yuma County Fairgrounds Concession Building.
The solar panels and the accompanying equipment would sit on approximately 2,000 acres, about eighth to 10 miles north of Yuma, west and east of Highway 59. The area extends a bit west of County Road E to the east to County Road H, and south to north roughly between county roads 47 and 48. The area zigs and zags around farm fields.
NextEra representatives said in November the company has reached lease agreements with all the landowners. They said the location was selected because it is near a substation on County Road E.
The NextEra representatives said construction would take about 18 months, with the hope of starting it by late 2024. There would be as many as 200 people onsite during construction, and it will take five people or less to maintain it after it goes into operation.
There will be a battery, roughly the size of a semitrailer, on site to store energy generated by the solar panels. When demand is low, the battery will charge from the power plant and store the electricity, then discharge to the power grid when customer demand is high.
