Solar energy project planned

Site adjacent to Point Beach plant

Wisconsin’s largest solar project, comprising hundreds of thousands of solar panels, would be built adjacent to the Point Beach nuclear plant in Two Rivers, under a proposal announced by the nuclear plant’s operator on Monday.

NextEra Energy Resources announced the project, to be called the Point Beach Solar Energy Center, in conjunction with WPPI Energy of Sun Prairie. WPPI plans to buy electricity generated by the project for 20 years.

Financial details of the project weren’t available, but it would be the same size as the largest solar generation project in the Midwest, a facility that just opened in Minnesota, renewable energy advocates said.

The Minnesota project, built by Xcel Energy in conjunction with solar companies, consists of 440,000 solar panels. It opened in North Branch, just north of the Twin Cities, at a cost of $180 million.

The Point Beach project would open in 2021, generate 100 megawatts of solar power and create between 150 and 200 jobs during its construction. By way of comparison, all of the solar projects across Wisconsin generated a total of 25 megawatts at the end of 2015.

The project would be capable of supplying 23,000 customers with electricity.

WPPI is a buyer of electricity from the Point Beach nuclear plant, which also supplies power for Milwaukee-based We Energies, the plant’s former owner. The plant is north of Manitowoc.

“This solar energy center adds diversity to WPPI Energy’s power supply portfolio in a way that’s more cost-effective than other opportunities currently available to us,” Mike Peters, president and chief executive of WPPI Energy, said in a statement.

WPPI last year announced plans to add 100 megawatts of renewable energy in the years to come, but until now any renewable energy project of this scale has been a wind farm.

“We are pleased to partner with WPPI Energy to bring the largest universal solar energy center to Wisconsin,” Mike

O’Sullivan, senior vice president of development for NextEra Energy Resources, said in a statement.

NextEra has opened large solar projects in Alabama and Minnesota, and is the largest generator of energy from wind and the sun in the country. It operates the Butler Ridge wind farm in Dodge County and several years ago sold its Montfort Wind farm near Dodgeville to We Energies.

WPPI is a public-power energy supplier that serves 51 municipal utilities, primarily in Wisconsin, including Cedarburg, Oconomowoc and Hartford in southeastern Wisconsin.

Bryan Garner, a spokesman for NextEra, said the company owns 1,200 acres of land at the site of the nuclear plant and would likely use much of the site for the project. The company hasn’t selected a vendor for the solar panels to be erected at Point Beach.

Under state law, a project generating at least 100 megawatts of electricity must be approved by regulators at the state Public Service Commission.

Thanks to the dramatic drop in the price of solar power in recent years, as well as federal tax credits, Wisconsin has seen solar announcements of some significance, with Dairyland Power Cooperative investing in more than 20 megawatts of solar projects spread across multiple sites in western Wisconsin.

But until now, no utility has proposed building more than a few megawatts on one site.

“To see something like this move forward is a big deal,” said Chris Kunkle of Wind on the Wires, an advocacy organization whose members include developers of large wind and solar projects.

The project effectively would double the total amount of solar that’s either already online or on the verge of being built in Wisconsin, said Tyler Huebner, executive director of Madison-based Renew Wisconsin.

“It builds on the continued growth of solar energy in the state,” he said.