Solar Garden: Alliant Project Near Rock County Jail Would Offer Solar Power Subscriptions

The 2.25-megawatt solar farm would make power available for both residents and commercial customers to purchase via an a la carte “subscription.”

It’s the second “community solar garden” solar project Alliant has spearheaded in Wisconsin since 2020, although it’s the first time the utility has worked with a county government as a property landlord on a solar panel and power storage development.

Alliant opened its first “community solar garden,” also structured as a “subscription” under a similar model in Fond du Lac County. Private entity Michels Corp. owns the land Alliant leases to operate that solar farm.

The Fond du Lac solar farm uses about 4,000 solar blocks, making it about half the size of the 9,000-block community solar garden Alliant plans to open in 2024 next to Rock Haven and the jail complex.

Brent Sutherland, director of Rock County’s facilities management division, said Alliant has been working on the project with the county for more than a year. He said Rock County in early 2022 declined to renew a farmer’s lease on the 30 acres just south of Highway 14.

At that time, he said the county already was moving toward a lease deal with Alliant that could bring a 10-acre, 1.4-megawatt solar farm to the county farm. The county in 2022 approved a land lease for the 10-acre parcel, then later approved a lease of the attached 20-acre parcel for a community solar garden, Sutherland said.

Sutherland said the 20-acre lease was approved by a county board subcommittee because state law doesn’t require full county board approval for any lease under $100,000. Sutherland did not disclose what Alliant would pay to lease the 10 acres that would house the county’s own solar farm.

Those projects typically require a sometimes lengthy public approval process through the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, the state’s main regulator of electrical utilities. Such a process apparently hasn’t been the case so far with the two projects Alliant now proposes on county-owned land.

Sutherland said that Alliant’s solar two lease and project proposals in Janesville were required to meet the Wisconsin Public Service commission’s standards for other similar solar projects that have already earned approval in Wisconsin.

But he said he believes state law does not require the Public Service Commission to approve solar projects located on county-owned land using its typical process, which normally include public hearings and official approval by the commission.

The Fond du Lac community solar garden already has reached its cap on customer subscriptions and people there who missed the cutoff are now on a waiting list, Alliant Energy Spokeswoman Melissa McCarville said.

Those who subscribe to use power generated at Alliant’s Janesville solar garden will be able to buy power in individual “solar blocks,” which represent a single unit of cells in a larger solar panel.

David Deleon, president of Alliant Energy Wisconsin, said that based on interest in Fond du Lac, “we anticipate (solar) blocks will be sold very quickly” in Janesville.

Under the program’s subscription model, customers would see a charge on their Alliant bill for the amount of solar-generated power they buy, but their overall bill would see a credit based on how much solar power they use.

Each solar block would cost $337. One solar block constitutes about about half the solar cells on a single, standard solar panel. A block or two would represents enough power for a residential customer to “dip their toe” in a solar subscription, McCarville said.

McCarville said most customers, whether commercial or residential, set up subscription packages that tie them to tapping solar-generated power for 25, 50, 75, or 100% of their overall electrical use.

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