There are plans to build a massive solar farm in the southwest suburbs in a site that would be bigger than Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Charlie Wojciechowski reports.
The Will County Board Thursday has cleared the way for a massive but controversial solar farm project to be built in the farm fields surrounding Manhattan, Illinois.
The board voted 12-to-8 to grant a special use permit to Virginia-based Earthrise Energy to build a 600 Megawatt solar farm on 6,100 acres of farmland across Green Garden, Wilton and Manhattan townships.
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“I moved out here five years ago for the open land,” said Linda Owens. “I don’t want to see solar panels.”
But others argued for the economic development and jobs a project like this could bring. James Connolly of the Laborers District Council of Chicago applauded the decision.
“We expected that the application would be deemed complete and this project is one step toward providing close to a thousand jobs for trades people,” he said.
Earthrise CEO Jeff Hunter issued a statement thanking the board and calling the approval a “significant milestone in delivering sustainable, renewable energy in Illinois.” He said the state is among the fastest-growing electricity markets in the Midwest, and projects like “Pride of the Prairie” are critical to meeting demand reliably and quickly.
Laura Heidrich held up a poster-sized satellite photo of her 10-acre property surrounded properties purchased by Earthrise stretching a mile in each direction.
The Heidrich family says their property was not purchased by Earthrise and will now be surrounded by those with solar panels.
“If we do decide to try to move, we are concerned about who is going to want to even look at some place that is surrounded by solar panels,” Ken Heidrich said.
Opponents of the project are vowing to continue their legal fight, perhaps by challenging the state’s laws surrounding the location of solar and battery storage facilities.
Earthrise said it is excited to get started on the project, with construction anticipated to start later this year.
