Airport solar farm planned for Wisconsin

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Solar generation may soon take flight in Wisconsin, at the Dane County Regional Airport. If approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, the proposed nine-megawatt (MW) solar farm is expected to provide about 40% of the electricity needed to power county-owned buildings, saving Dane County about $137,000 annually beginning next year.

 

This project helps advance Madison Gas & Electric’s (MGE) goal of producing carbon-neutral electricity by 2050.

 

MGE will own the solar farm on land leased from the airport and will sell the electricity to the county for the next 30 years at the rate of 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour (KwH), the Madison State Journal reported.

 

A smaller, eight MW project was proposed last year but Dane County and MGE expanded the size of the solar farm by 18 acres after the airport approved additional land for the program.

 

MGE is currently working with the city of Middleton and the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District to sell them 30% of output from a five MW solar farm that will go online next year at the Middleton Municipal Airport. The rest of the output from that solar project will be available to residential and small business customers through the power company’s Shared Solar program, the newspaper reported.

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