Champaign County could be home to a new solar farm.
At a public meeting on Nov. 13, many neighbors came with concerns about the proposed renewable energy project.
The company proposing the project, RWE, calls it Hillclimber Solar. It’s a 116 megawatt solar and 40 megawatt battery storage project. It would go live in 2029.
It would span over 900 acres in Urbana Township, within a few miles of Urbana’s city center. This would be the second solar project in Champaign County.
RWE estimates Hillclimber would generate roughly $30 million in property taxes over the project’s lifespan.
They brought members of the development team, subject matter experts and construction employees to the meeting, Hillclimber Solar’s development manager Hackett Landefeld said.
“It's really valuable for us to be able to have honest conversations with people, tell them ’here's what we do as a company with deep expertise in power generation going back to the 1890s,’” Landefeld said.
“...These are opportunities for us… to give people the best resources to answer questions that they have about many different aspects of this project.”
Local pushback on the project
Champaign County has an active ban on new utility-scale solar projects in its townships and unincorporated areas.
But this project isn’t subject to the ban because the company had signed agreements with the regional electric grid operator, PJM, prior to the passage of the ban.
Most attendees at the Thursday meeting didn’t approve of the project moving forward. Some concerns from residents in the room included potential environmental impacts, changes in viewshed, and a lack of local benefits it would provide the township.
Brad Winner Sr. lives in the township. He organized with neighbors to fight against the project shortly after the company issued its first public notice in September, Winner said.
“The only thing that we desire is for them to pack up and go home. We don't want to hear their spiels about what they're gonna do for us,” he said.
Winner said he’s frustrated at the rate in which developments like data centers require more power sources to come online.
“All the green initiatives will all be a wash,” he said.
Urbana Township trustee Blair Stinson said RWE’s staff have come to many of their meetings. Locals have come to a few as well – all of whom voiced disapproval.
“Being elected by the people, I mean we're going to represent the majority of our residents. So far, it's a complete landslide, you know? Residents don't want to have this happen in our township,”
Stinson said.
But Stinson doesn’t want to discourage people in favor of the project from speaking up.
“People that are for this project should voice their opinion about it. We're not trying to leave anyone behind. We would like to hear from everyone.”
RWE wants to compromise
The company reduced the size of the project by 200 acres after receiving community feedback at a public meeting last month. The removed section was in a densely populated residential area, development manager Landefeld said.
“Our team came together and we said ‘hey, if there's one thing that we can do right now that is going to reduce the impact on people's day-to-day lives, it's gonna be to just remove that northwest section from the project,” Landefeld said.
They will be contacting more people in the coming weeks to continue to gather feedback from those living closest to the project, he said.
“What I see my job to do here is to figure out what are those specific impacts that this is having on people and how can we mitigate those impacts, how can we reduce those impacts as much as possible,” Landefeld said.
RWE hasn’t officially applied to state energy permitters for approval, but state law requires an application 90 days after the second public informational meeting is held.
People can make public comments on the project’s case record.
