Last Tuesday, Ada County Commissioners voted to stop an industrial scale solar farm in the middle of an agricultural area in Kuna and Melba. Opponents of the project say this move will preserve agricultural life in Idaho.
Savion is a renewable energy company owned by Shell Oil and it proposed to build and operate a utility-scale solar facility in both Ada and Canyon County. The project would have consisted of an up to 250-megawatt solar array between the two counties and 237,000 solar panels on about 1,400 acres in Ada County.
Dustin Ferdinand is a vocal opponent saying the project would have hurt area agriculture, as well as residents.
“They're also proposing ten acres of lithium ion batteries within a half a mile of our house and within half a mile of lots of other residences. We all know those lithium ion batteries when they catch on fire, that smoke is so harmful to every living creature around here,” Ferdinand said.
But Mitchell Taylor, the director of development and M&A at Savion, said the company is disappointed with the decision and could have helped landowners.
“Primarily the interconnection and the landowners interest in using their properties for this purpose and being able to serve the energy that could have been equivalent to about the same as the residents of Nampa, Kuna and Melba combined,” Taylor said.
Ada County Commissioners rejected Savion’s project at the end of July to have the solar facility operating between the farmlands of Kuna and Melba.
However, Ada County Commissioner Ryan Davidson said in a hearing that this vote doesn’t mean the board is anti-solar.
“We've approved a solar project for this very same company but out in the desert, where there are not a lot of residents, there's no farmland,” Davidson stated during the project's decision hearing.
Davidson says the commissioners are looking at other solar projects. Taylor said the company is regrouping for next steps.
