Residents: Look beyond solar company’s sales pitch
Folks in Greene County, especially residents of rural Cedarville, Miami, and Xenia townships, are pushing back against a gigantic solar energy facility proposed for a scenic corner of the county.
Kingwood Solar 1 (a Texas-based LLC, owned by Vesper Energy and financed by Magnetar Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm) proposes to construct and operate a utility-scale electric generation facility that would blanket approximately 1,500 acres of prime agricultural land situated between Clifton, Yellow Springs and Cedarville. For comparison, 1,500 acres is equivalent to over 1,130 football fields. The Kingwood facility is designed to produce electricity which Vesper will monetize in the form of a power purchase agreement and sell to a large corporation seeking renewable energy tax credits.
While Vesper claims to have “commercialized” solar projects, the company and its project manager have no operational experience with projects of any size. Vesper has also experienced a continuous turnover of project managers for the last five years.
Vesper’s current PR campaign touts the dollars and cents that would accrue to the county over 35 years. In full-page ads they urge residents to “contact your Elected Officials and support clean energy for
Greene County today.” Vesper touts increased jobs but almost all will be temporary construction jobs with no guarantee of local union wages and benefits. Once constructed, only a few permanent jobs will result, and these will not offset the direct agricultural jobs Vesper’s own economic consultant anticipates will be lost.
Vesper would like you to believe that the Kingwood facility will be benign, with little impact to the local character and no risks to the community, farmland or environment. No comparably sized facilities have been operating in the Midwest for any length of time, so there is no verifiable or long-term data upon which to predict or assess the risks of projects such as Kingwood. The jury is still out on the economics, efficiency and unintended or long-term consequences associated with such large installations.
Citizens for Greene Acres came together because many of us who live in the area have genuine concerns about the size, scale and compatibility of an industrial energy project sited in an area long valued for its agricultural, historic, and recreational resources.
Our opposition to Kingwood is not based on misinformation. We are not anti-solar or climate change deniers, nor are we opposed to Ohio’s efforts to balance the state’s future needs with responsible siting of renewable energy sources. Local residents and officials who initially questioned and now oppose Kingwood climbed a steep and empowering learning curve as we considered the pros and cons of utility-scale solar at this particular time and in this particular place.
We encourage everyone to look beyond Kingwood’s sales pitch. Ask yourself whether more than 1,500 acres of Greene County’s most scenic and productive agricultural land should be trusted to a company who is focused on corporate profits, has zero operational experience, and has no roots in the local community.