Solar project wants to locate near Emery

By Patsy Stoddard
Editor

Luigi Resta is the Executive Vice President, of Onyx Renewable Partners. He is in charge of Utility Solar Development. Resta said they are working on a project that could bring solar energy to Emery County.
The project is on the private land of the Castle Valley Ranch near Emery. Resta said he has been to Emery County and visited with the county commissioners on several occasions to discuss the project.
The project is hoping for some tax abatements to be able to bring the project to Emery County. Solar projects are taxed as personal property and this personal property tax is paid until the project wears out.
Resta said in order to be competitive and offer lower cost electricity to the utilities, they are looking for areas to locate where tax abatements will be allowed.
At the recent Emery County Commission meeting it was discussed whether or not to create a Community Reinvestment Area. If this agency is created, it would be the entity to determine if tax breaks for the solar companies would be allowed as well as any other businesses seeking to locate in the county.
The setting up of the agency would be the first step.
Resta said the solar project planned for Emery County would bring significant new tax revenue into the county. Right now, the county isn’t receiving any tax money from solar projects. Resta said if the solar project was allowed to pay a smaller increment of taxes for the life of the project, it would benefit the project as well as the county.
The projects Resta has been involved with as well as other renewable projects have been built with similar incremental tax breaks.
The county doesn’t put any money into the project. The project pays all the upfront and construction costs for the solar project. The tax breaks are post performance and reimbursed to the solar company.
The school board would also need to approve the project because they would be the only other taxing entity involved in this project. Resta said they haven’t had any trouble getting these projects built in other areas. Most areas are happy to see projects and economic activity come into their area. The construction phase involves 150-200 workers. It takes from 10-12 months to put in a 100 megawatt plant. After the construction is complete it takes four workers to operate and maintain each 100 megawatt plant. Plans are to construct four-five 100 megawatt plants.
Resta said he has been before school boards to present their projects and they are successful in doing this. Most people recognize the value of having a piece of the pie for their area.
Resta said they will be putting in only a limited number of these projects and it will be very competitive. He has been involved in the Utah Red Hills renewable project and the Three Peaks project in Iron County, which are built and operational. Their main goal is to deliver solar at competitive low cost to the utilities. There needs to be more education on the benefits of solar energy to a community.
Resta said before they can move forward they need to know what sort of tax obligation they are looking at in order to secure buyers for their power and determine what their power is going to cost.
 There are several bidding opportunities coming up soon with the utilities and they would like to be able to get involved in this process, the best developed projects will have the advantage, which means understanding the costs.
They are looking at several other counties and states. They are also looking at some church owned property in Emery County.
The project would allow for 20-40 years of an increased tax base for Emery County. Resta said he has talked to school district personnel and they seem to be in in favor of the project and very supportive.
Resta said the solar power units would bring in approximately $130,000 worth of tax dollars into the county for each of the units every year. This is with the abatements discussed.
Resta is hopeful the county will move forward with the Community Reinvestment Agency. He has seen these types of agencies work well in other areas to get high capital projects off the ground.
He said they are setting realistic goals for their company and want to be able to provide competitively low rates for utilities, in order to win the contracts and increase tax revenue to the county and provide some new jobs to the area. He said timing is a real issue right now and Requests for Proposals will be out soon lining up the projects. It would be impossible for them to bid on these projects without everything in place concerning the tax credit element.
“Projects are being developed statewide. We want the Emery County project to succeed. We want everyone’s buy in. this is one of the many approvals needed, ultimately it will be a competition with other projects around the state to secure contracts to sell the power, this is not just the project competing but also the county.
“Once the project gets all the approvals, then it will be built in phases of steps. One 100 megawatt project at a time. If all five projects are built it would provide 20 full time jobs to the area,” said Resta.