FAQ's
The energy facility siting, permitting and construction process is complex and involves many stakeholders. Diligent study work and coordination with stakeholders is important to ensure compliance with every applicable law and regulation during the development process. Hecate Energy is committed to providing responses to community questions and concerns through every phase of the project and into operation.
We hope this page provides extensive information, but if you don’t find the answer to your question here or elsewhere on this website, please write to us using the comment form page.
Frequently asked questions:
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PV solar modules that rotate to face the sun throughout the day
- Steel racking to hold the modules in place and affix them to the ground
- Access roads
- Electrical interconnection to the utility grid
- Stormwater and drainage controls
- Perimeter Fence
Sunfish Solar Farm is a 1-gigawatt (GW) photovoltaic (PV) solar facility under development by Hecate Energy. The project will be constructed in two 500-megawatt (MW) phases. Sunfish Solar Farm, which is anticipated to occupy approximately 6,000 acres, will include:
The Project will utilize less than the total area studies. The remaining acres are available for farming.
Hecate Energy is proposing to build Sunfish Solar Farm. A developer of solar power plants, wind-power plants, and energy storage solutions, Hecate Energy has developed, constructed or has under construction over 1.5 GW of solar projects across the US.
For more information, please visit www.HecateEnergy.com
It will be built in Calhoun County, Michigan. The Project will be built on several non-contiguous areas. The Project is anticipated to be approximately 6,000 acres and utilize less land than the total area studied.
The 1 GW solar farm is expected to annually generate approximately 2 gigawatt hours (GWh) of energy – enough to meet the average annual consumption of over 183,500 Michigan households.
- Utility-scale solar projects, such as Sunfish Solar Farm, produce less expensive electricity than smaller, distributed installations. They save an estimated 40% in building costs compared to smaller projects – savings that reduce the price of the electricity they produce.[1]
- Sunfish Solar Farm, like other utility-scale projects, employs tracking technology that follows the sun’s path to optimize the amount of electricity it can produce and minimize the project's land requirements.
- Grid-connected projects can provide electricity consumers, local utilities and power system operators with inexpensive solar energy.
Michigan State currently gets only 12.5% of its electricity from clean, renewable resources like solar, wind and hydropower.
Sunfish Solar Farm will provide annual contributions to the county tax base. The Project will contribute significant additional property tax revenue for the locality relative to what is currently collected from the property on which it is located. The Project will create hundreds of construction jobs during peak construction. Also, operations and maintenance will create additional jobs during operation that we seek to source locally.
- As Hecate Energy develops solar facilities, it works to preserve soil resources with an eye toward returning the land to agricultural use in the future.
- Solar facilities are among the least disruptive of any electricity-producing technologies. This project’s impact on the soil will be limited to the spots where steel beams are driven into the ground to support the solar panel arrays and small concrete pads used to hold inverter stations and transformers. As a result, the land used by the solar facility can be returned to full agricultural production after the planned life of the Project.
- By providing a productive, low-impact use for the land, the solar facility also prevents the land from being sold for much higher impact uses such as residential development which creates major impacts on schools, roads, utilities, municipal services and watersheds.
- Vegetation management will primarily be done with periodic mowing and trimming. Little or no chemical vegetation control is planned once the site is stabilized. Hecate Energy also is exploring the potential incorporation of pollinator-friendly vegetation, suitable crop co-location and the potential for coproductive sheep grazing.
- Hecate Energy will work with the landowners and the local governments prior to construction activities to obtain proper permitting. It is both a requirement to obtain all permits necessary for the project, including stormwater control permits, and important to ongoing operations of the Project that drainage be maintained during the project's construction phase.
- Hecate will utilize local drainage tile specialists/consultants to help ensure water drainage within and surrounding the project will not be negatively impacted during the construction and operation of the solar farm. We are committed to working with participating and non-participating landowners to identify field drainage tile facilities. In the rare event that any disruption occurs to a water drainage system, Hecate will immediately work to repair any issues and find a long-term solution to ensure the drainage is not impacted moving forward.
- The land below the solar arrays will be planted with a low-growing seed mix of native and/or pollinator grasses and other low-maintenance varieties to promote precipitation infiltration and reduce water run-off and soil erosion.
- All site drainage plans will be thoroughly reviewed by both state and local governments prior to construction. The effectiveness of the drainage system in the project site will be the responsibility of the Project, and these costs will be borne by the Project, not the taxpayer or neighbors.
- We don’t anticipate any impact on private wells.
- Because solar energy is created through the physical process of sunlight striking and exciting electrons and starting a flow of energy, as opposed to a combustion process, solar energy does not produce any emissions during operation.
- During construction, there are potential safety issues that are common to all sorts of construction projects, but there are no health-related effects from operating solar facilities. In fact, one of the most significant benefits of solar energy is that it results in very few air pollutants. An analysis by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that widespread solar adoption would significantly reduce nitrous oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter emissions, all of which can cause health problems. NREL found that, among other health benefits, implementation of solar power results in fewer cases of chronic bronchitis, respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and lost workdays related to health issues.
- In addition to the positive emissions impacts, solar facilities are excellent protectors of watershed resources and help regenerate soils. Unlike conventional power plants, operating solar facilities use little to no water. The low-impact design also maintains a porous surface area for local groundwater recharge. Furthermore, by using the right seed mix, solar sites can provide significant benefits related to soil regeneration and crop pollination over the 35- to 40-year life of the Project, allowing microorganisms and soil fauna to recover after years of regular farming.
- Solar facilities are great neighbors. They operate quietly without emissions or water discharges and help to preserve open space.
- The community is highly encouraged to participate in this process (See How can I participate? below).
- Hecate Energy will evaluate the potential visual impacts of the project from a variety of locations surrounding the site. Closer views, (e.g. across the road) can be mitigated with vegetative screening.
- The electricity will flow to the nearest local points of demand.
- Electromagnetic fields (EMF) are largely associated with high voltage transmission lines and are not an issue with solar facilities.
- EMF occurs in all electrical equipment, including household appliances (televisions, microwaves, toasters, etc.) Solar facilities generate EMF comparable to household appliances.
- Health-related EMF issues have been extensively studied in peer reviewed publications and no links have been found between EMF and human health.
- The solar tracking arrays are built to robust American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) standards. In the event of extreme weather and high winds, operational procedures will be implemented to stow the trackers in a direction to best withstand high winds.
- Recent experience with solar facilities encountering severe weather is encouraging. When Hurricane Florence struck in September 2018, North Carolina’s solar facilities remained operational with only minimal damage while other parts of the state’s electricity system failed.
- Solar panel manufacturers provide 25-year warranties for their product and solar panels have been shown to outperform their warranties. This solar facility is expected to have a useful life of 25-35 years.
- This long-lasting technology is being deployed with the expectation that it will provide significant and sustainable benefit to the local community and electricity customers for decades.
- The Project’s economics provide assurance of its long-term operation. Most of the project costs are incurred in developing, siting, and building the facility. Once the solar facility is up and running, maintenance costs are relatively minor. To recover start-up costs and earn a profit requires that the facility produce power for the full term of the 25-35 years of its planned life.
- Solar-produced electricity is increasingly competitive in power markets, so it is expected to become one of the lowest priced electric generation sources. After its planned life, the technology could be updated, or the site returned to agricultural use, depending on the wishes of the landowner.
- The Project’s decommissioning plan is an integral part of the permitting process. A decommissioning bond is required by local government to ensure there is a dedicated source of funds for decommissioning. Based upon landowner preferences, the land will be restored to agricultural use unless circumstances at the time of decommissioning indicate that another use is more appropriate.
- The Project will be configured as a ground-mounted solar farm with PV panels on galvanized steel tracker racking structures. It will include rows of single-axis trackers, oriented in a north-south direction, that rotate the PV panels from east to west. By following the sun’s daily path, this configuration optimizes the amount of power the solar facility can produce.
- The tracker structure is low-profile, approximately 12 feet high above grade at the tallest point (about the height of field corn stalks).
- The solar panels planned for this Project are the crystalline type commonly used for rooftop residential systems. They contain the same materials (glass, aluminum, plastic) used in many household construction materials such as windows.
- The type of solar PV technology to be used by the Sunfish Solar Farm has been in use and continually refined since it was invented in 1954. It is the same panel technology used on over a million houses across the United States.
- Over 108.7 GW is currently installed in the US. Today over 4% of US electricity comes from solar energy, more then 80 times its share a decade ago.
- Photovoltaic (PV) panels use the sun’s energy to produce direct current (DC) electricity that flows to on-site electrical inverters that turn DC electricity to alternating current AC electricity, which then flows to the electrical grid for consumers to use.
- Hecate Energy is taking great care to ensure that development, construction, and operation of the Blue Solar Farm benefits the community. We encourage you to contact us with any feedback, thoughts, concerns. You participate in that effort in several ways.
Contact:
Sunfish Solar Farm Project Team:
Harrison Luna
SunfishSolar@HecateEnergy.com
Call Toll-Free: (000) 000-0000