The Indiana Municipal Power Agency will invest $4,515,000 to build a two-megawatt solar panel park at 500 Memorial Drive. With that project in its planning stages, Crawfordsville city council members will vote next Monday whether to grant IMPA personal property tax deductions.
Due to its nonprofit status, IMPA would make payments in lieu of taxes for property it owns. County officials have agreed to sell 22 acres for the solar farm, which will be north of the Pleasant Meadows subdivision.
Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton supported IMPA’s upcoming efforts to develop a solar energy park in the area during Monday night’s city council committee meeting.
“We had to compete to get this here because we eventually want that taxable personal property here,” Barton said. “We want that infrastructure here rather than in other communities.”
The Fiscal Affairs Committee favorably recommended a resolution authorizing personal property tax deductions for IMPA.
Phil Goode, manger of Crawfordsville Electric Light & Power, announced during the Utility Service Board’s July meeting that IMPA selected Crawfordsville and four other cities to build solar farms. The project requires 7,666 solar panels to be spread across 22 acres of land.
Construction of the solar farms is projected to be completed by the end of August 2015.
“Solar energy will decrease the carbon footprint for our customers,” Goode said in a July interview with the Journal Review. “That has been our desire over the past few years. It also gives us low-cost, local power for the community.”
Goode estimated solar energy would cost approximately seven cents per kilowatt hour.
In addition to the Fiscal Affairs Committee favorably recommending tax abatements for the project, the Ordinances and Petitions Committee discussed a resolution modifying commitments regarding the property that will eventually contain the solar panels.
Montgomery County Commissioners agreed in mid-January to a series of commitments regarding the 500 Memorial Drive property. The commitments included the installation of a landscape buffer and a 12-foot berm near Pleasant Meadows.
Montgomery County Building Administrator Mark Bonwell appeared before the committee Monday night to request the removal of the 12-foot berm commitment. The berm would cast shadows over the solar panels and decrease energy production.